Lady Barbarina Part 28

"Leave that to the natives," said Mr. Westgate. "Leave the Tennessee Central to me, Mr. Beaumont. I guess I can tell you more about it than most any one. But I didn't know you Englishmen ever did any work-in the upper cla.s.ses."

"Oh we do a lot of work, don't we, Lambeth?" Percy Beaumont appealed.

"I must certainly be back early for _my_ engagements," said his companion irrelevantly but gently.

"For the shooting, eh? or is it the yachting or the hunting or the fishing?" inquired his entertainer.

"Oh I must be in Scotland,"-and Lord Lambeth just amiably blushed.

"Well, then," Mr. Westgate returned, "you had better amuse yourself first also. You must go right down and see Mrs. Westgate."

"We should be so happy-if you'd kindly tell us the train," said Percy Beaumont.

"You don't take any train. You take a boat."

"Oh I see. And what is the name of-a-the-a-town?"

"It's a regular old city-don't you let them hear you call it a village or a hamlet or anything of that kind. They'd half-kill you. Only it's a city of pleasure-of lawns and gardens and verandahs and views and, above all, of good Samaritans," Mr. Westgate developed. "But you'll see what Newport is. It's cool. That's the princ.i.p.al thing. You'll greatly oblige me by going down there and putting yourself in the hands of Mrs.

Westgate. It isn't perhaps for me to say it, but you couldn't be in better ones. Also in those of her sister, who's staying with her. She's half-crazy about Englishmen. She thinks there's nothing like them."

"Mrs. Westgate or-a-her sister?" asked Percy Beaumont modestly, yet in the tone of a collector of characteristic facts.

"Oh I mean my wife," said Mr. Westgate. "I don't suppose my sister-in-law knows much about them yet. You'll show her anyhow. She has always led a very quiet life. She has lived in Boston."

Percy Beaumont listened with interest. "That, I believe, is the most intellectual centre."

"Well, yes-Boston knows it's central and feels it's intellectual. I don't go there much-I stay round here," Mr. Westgate more loosely pursued.

"I say, you know, _we_ ought to go there," Lord Lambeth broke out to his companion.

"Oh Lord Lambeth, wait till the great heat's over!" Mr. Westgate interposed. "Boston in this weather would be very trying; it's not the temperature for intellectual exertion. At Boston, you know, you have to pa.s.s an examination at the city limits, and when you come away they give you a kind of degree."

Lord Lambeth flushed himself, in his charming way, with wonder, though his friend glanced to make sure he wasn't looking too credulous-they had heard so much about American practices. He decided in time, at any rate, to take a safe middle course. "I daresay it's very jolly."

"I daresay it is," Mr. Westgate returned. "Only I must impress on you that at present-to-morrow morning at an early hour-you'll be expected at Newport. We have a house there-many of our most prominent citizens and society leaders go there for the summer. I'm not sure that at this very moment my wife can take you in-she has a lot of people staying with her.

I don't know who they all are-only she may have no room. But you can begin with the hotel and meanwhile you can live at my house. In that way-simply sleeping at the hotel-you'll find it tolerable. For the rest you must make yourself at home at my place. You mustn't be shy, you know; if you're only here for a month that will be a great waste of time.

Mrs. Westgate won't neglect you, and you had better not undertake to resist her. I know something about that. I guess you'll find some pretty girls on the premises. I shall write to my wife by this afternoon's mail, and to-morrow she and Miss Alden will look out for you.

Just walk right in and get into touch. Your steamer leaves from this part of the city, and I'll send right out and get you a cabin. Then at half-past four o'clock just call for me here, and I'll go with you and put you on board. It's a big boat; you might get lost. A few days hence, at the end of the week, I don't know but I'll come down myself and see how you are."

The two young Englishmen inaugurated the policy of not resisting Mrs.

Westgate by submitting, with great docility and thankfulness, to her husband. He was evidently a clear thinker, and he made an impression on his visitors; his hospitality seemed to recommend itself consciously-with a friendly wink, as might be, hinting judicially that you couldn't make a better bargain. Lord Lambeth and his cousin left their entertainer to his labours and returned to their hotel, where they spent three or four hours in their respective shower-baths. Percy Beaumont had suggested that they ought to see something of the town, but "Oh d.a.m.n the town!" his n.o.ble kinsman had rejoined. They returned to Mr. Westgate's office in a carriage, with their luggage, very punctually; but it must be reluctantly recorded that this time he so kept them waiting that they felt themselves miss their previous escape and were deterred only by an amiable modesty from dispensing with his attendance and starting on a hasty scramble to embark. But when at last he appeared and the carriage plunged into the purlieus of Broadway they jolted and jostled to such good purpose that they reached the huge white vessel while the bell for departure was still ringing and the absorption of pa.s.sengers still active. It was indeed, as Mr. Westgate had said, a big boat, and his leadership in the innumerable and interminable corridors and cabins, with which he seemed perfectly acquainted and of which any one and every one appeared to have the _entree_, was very grateful to the slightly bewildered voyagers. He showed them their state-room-a luxurious retreat embellished with gas-lamps, mirrors _en pied_ and florid furniture-and then, long after they had been intimately convinced that the steamer was in motion and launched upon the unknown stream they were about to navigate, he bade them a sociable farewell.

"Well, good-bye, Lord Lambeth," he said. "Goodbye, Mr. Percy Beaumont.

I hope you'll have a good time. Just let them do what they want with you. Take it as it's meant. Renounce your own personality. I'll come down by and by and enjoy what's left of you."

II

The young Englishmen emerged from their cabin and amused themselves with wandering about the immense labyrinthine ship, which struck them as a monstrous floating hotel or even as a semi-submerged kindergarten. It was densely crowded with pa.s.sengers, the larger number of whom appeared to be ladies and very young children; and in the big saloons, ornamented in white and gold, which followed each other in surprising succession, beneath the swinging gas-lights and among the small side-pa.s.sages where the negro domestics of both s.e.xes a.s.sembled with an air of amused criticism, every one was moving to and fro and exchanging loud and familiar observations. Eventually, at the instance of a blackamoor more closely related to the scene than his companions, our friends went and had "supper" in a wonderful place arranged like a theatre, where, from a gilded gallery upon which little boxes appeared to open, a large orchestra played operatic selections and, below, people handed about bills of fare in the manner of programmes. All this was sufficiently curious; but the agreeable thing, later, was to sit out on one of the great white decks in the warm breezy darkness and, the vague starlight aiding, make out the line of low mysterious coast. Our travellers tried American cigars-those of Mr. Westgate-and conversed, as they usually conversed, with many odd silences, lapses of logic and incongruities of transition; like a pair who have grown old together and learned to guess each other's sense; or, more especially, like persons so conscious of a common point of view that missing links and broken lights and loose ends, the unexpressed and the understood, could do the office of talk.

"We really seem to be going out to sea," Percy Beaumont observed. "Upon my honour we're going back to England. He has shipped us off again. I call that 'real mean.'"

"I daresay it's all right," said Lord Lambeth. "I want to see those pretty girls at Newport. You know he told us the place was an island, and aren't all islands in the sea?"

"Well," resumed the elder traveller after a while, "if his house is as good as his cigars I guess we shall muddle through."

"I fancy he's awfully 'prominent,' you know, and I rather liked him,"

Lord Lambeth pursued as if this appreciation of Mr. Westgate had but just glimmered on him.

His comrade, however, engaged in another thought, didn't so much as appear to catch it. "I say, I guess we had better remain at the inn. I don't think I like the way he spoke of his house. I rather object to turning in with such a tremendous lot of women."

"Oh I don't mind," said Lord Lambeth. And then they smoked a while in silence. "Fancy his thinking we do no work in England!" the young man resumed.

But it didn't rouse his friend, who only replied: "I daresay he didn't really a bit think so."

"Well, I guess they don't know much about England over here!" his lordship humorously sighed. After which there was another long pause.

"He _has_ got us out of a hole," observed the young n.o.bleman.

Percy Beaumont genially a.s.sented. "n.o.body certainly could have been more civil."

"Littledale said his wife was great fun," Lord Lambeth then contributed.

"Whose wife-Littledale's?"

"Our benefactor's. Mrs. Westgate. What's his name? J. L. It 'kind of'

sounds like a number. But I guess it's a high number," he continued with freshened gaiety.

The same influences appeared, however, with Mr. Beaumont to make rather for anxiety. "What was fun to Littledale," he said at last a little sententiously, "may be death to us."

"What do you mean by that?" his companion asked. "I'm as good a man as Littledale."

"My dear boy, I hope you won't begin to flirt," said the elder man.

His friend smoked acutely. "Well, I daresay I shan't _begin_."

"With a married woman, if she's bent upon it, it's all very well," Mr.

Beaumont allowed. "But our friend mentioned a young lady-a sister, a sister-in-law. For G.o.d's sake keep free of her."

"How do you mean, 'free'?"

"Depend upon it she'll try to land you."

"Oh rot!" said Lord Lambeth.

"American girls are very 'cute,'" the other urged.

"So much the better," said the young man.