Lady Betty Across the Water Part 16

Her second husband was a wholesale dry goods man years ago, but most people have forgotten that, now he's worth his millions, and he's got the most gorgeous place, quite like one of your old castles. The worst of it is, his mother lives with them, and when she was showing the bride--Cora--over the house (which was decorated pretty weirdly for the first wife,) the old lady kept explaining: 'This is the Louis Seize room; this is the Queen Anne room.' Cora just looked at the things, and said: 'What makes you think so?' Smart, wasn't it? But Cora's changed everything inside the house now. She loves change. She's even changed her birthday, so as to have it in leap year; and as for her mind, she changes it entirely at least six times a day; says that's why women have nicer minds than men; they change them oftener. But I've gossiped enough about a person you don't know, Lady Betty. Let's talk about England. I run over to Paris for a month or two most years, but I've only been twice to England. I did all the sights, though, didn't miss anything. I gave four days to London alone. Candidly, I don't think your women dress nearly as well as we do, or hold themselves as well, but perhaps you're more _feminine_ looking, take you all in all. I don't mean anything _personal_, of course. But I _do_ think your men are lovely. I met a perfectly charming Member of Parliament, and he invited me to tea on the terrace. Such strawberries and cream. But I'm afraid I hurt his feelings. I said I couldn't help thinking 'House of Commons' a most insulting name, and if we called our Senate anything like that we couldn't get an American man who respected himself to go into it. But English people are so queer. They don't seem to mind admitting that there is a cla.s.s above theirs."

"Betty doesn't need to know anything about that," said Mrs. Ess Kay.

"She is on the highest pinnacle."

"Oh, dear no," said I. "There are the Royalties."

"Don't you think you are just as _good_?" asked Mrs. Taylour.

"I never thought about it in that way," I answered, stupidly. For of course I hadn't.

"Surely you don't bob to them?"

"Indeed we do," I protested.

"Well then, I _wouldn't_," said Mrs. Taylour, firmly. "I'd have my head cut off first, especially before I'd curtsey to a Man."

Quite a colour flew into her face as she a.s.serted her independence, and Mrs. Ess Kay must have seen that the invalid was getting excited, for she rose quickly to go.

"Come, Betty," said she, and I came.

The lift plunged us down through the inner workings of the skeleton. I had the sensation that it was dropping away from under my feet, and that as I dangled above it like a wobbly little balloon my head had been left behind somewhere near the top. But I didn't leave my heart behind in Mrs. Taylour's flat.

VIII

ABOUT NEWPORT AND GORGEOUSNESS

I was anxious to travel in an American train, so Mrs. Ess Kay said we might go by rail to Newport, instead of by boat as she had intended.

I know it was very wrong in principle, but when we got to the Grand Central Station, (or Depot, as perhaps I ought to call it,) I did wish that slavery existed again, so that I could have bought two or three of those delightful _cafe-au-lait_-coloured porters in grey livery and red caps. There were several I would have given anything to have to take home with me, and make pets of; but I suppose even if they had been for sale, they would have come too expensive and I should have had to give them up; for their eyes alone, to say nothing of their pleasant white grins, would have been worth pounds and pounds. As for their voices, they were the sweetest I'd heard in America, soft, and a little throaty, with a peculiar quality, quite different from the voice of a person who hasn't been dipped in _cafe au lait_. With their vivid red caps, their brilliant eyes, and their lightning-flash smiles, they looked to me more like great wonderful, tropical birds than human beings, and they seemed so honey-luscious in their good nature that I'm sure all the things that serious and learned people say in England about the "dangers of the increasing coloured population in America"

must be nonsense. Serious and learned people do make such mistakes, through never seeing the fun in anything; and every few years they find out that they have been quite wrong in what they have taught with so much trouble, about comets and microbes and men, and other progressive things.

We had a number of these tropical birds that have been tamed to serve the railway, to help us with our bags and things getting into the train, although there were Louise and a couple of Mrs. Ess Kay's footmen as well. I looked at their brown hands, and they were quite pink inside, as pink as mine. I don't know why this gave me a shock, but it did. Perhaps one had the feeling that the nice creatures were only painted to play their parts, or that their white souls--just like ours--were striking through their skins.

It was a beautiful train. Even the engine was different from our kind, much fiercer, and reared its head higher, like a wild stag compared to a stout but reliable ox. Our carriage had no compartments in it, but was just one long wide, moving corridor, all plate gla.s.s windows and mirrors, and painted panels, and velvet arm chairs dotted about, rather like a hotel drawing-room on wheels.

There were a good many people in it when we got in, which annoyed Mrs.

Ess Kay so much that she wished she had borrowed a private car from a friend who would have loved lending it. But I was glad she hadn't, for the people were part of the fun. Mrs. Ess Kay was sure they were n.o.bodies, because she didn't happen to know any of their faces; but perhaps they were thinking the same thing about her.

Anyway, they were mostly women and all pretty and perfectly dressed, as even quite common people appear to be in America. I haven't caught sight of a dowdy woman since I came. None of their frocks. .h.i.tch up in front and dip down behind, as you see people's doing if you are taken to a shop in Oxford Street or even sometimes in Bond Street; and their belts always point beautifully down at the waist, although it _isn't_ the Season in New York.

The train was a fast one, and simply hurled itself and us through s.p.a.ce, as if we had got onto the tail of a comet by mistake; but it hardly waggled at all, so that we could have studied the scenery nicely if we had been able to see it behind the advertis.e.m.e.nts.

Pa.s.sing the outskirts of New York, it seemed as if every villa, even the quite smart ones, did their own washing. The gardens--which Sally told me to call back yards--were just as full of clean clothes as the meadows were of advertis.e.m.e.nt h.o.a.rdings, and I rather wondered why some enterprising agents didn't go round and offer the people big prices for painting Uneeda Biscuit on their petticoats and shirts.

We tore through such charming places with fascinating houses built of wood, among parks of feathery green trees, that I was sure Newport could be no prettier; but Mrs. Ess Kay spoiled the most picturesque one for me by saying that it was practically settled by retired butchers and tailors. According to Mrs. Ess Kay and her brother, all you have to do to be sure of being rich in America, is to decide to be either a tailor or a butcher, so it seems quite simple, and I'm surprised that everybody doesn't do it. Only if you do, it appears there is no use in your going to Newport until you've lived it down; which, of course, must be a drawback.

Just as I had got rather giddy from looking out of the window, a boy (exactly like the boys in melodrama who begin by selling papers and end by saving the heroine from the villain) came into the car, piled up to his head with novels and magazines. He scattered a lot over us, like manna, without asking us to pay, but just as I had got pa.s.sionately interested in a short story he came back and began to gather everything up. Seeing that I clung to my lot, Potter bought them all for me, before I could stop him.

There were two books and four magazines, with superlatively good-looking, well-groomed young men and divinely lovely girls for the heroes and heroines. The story I was most interested in had a hero like Mr. Brett; but it was disappointing in the end, because he married a short plump girl with black eyes, and somehow it spoiled the realism, as I couldn't fancy he would really have cared so dreadfully for a girl like that. Anyway, it put me out of the mood for reading any more stories and I began glancing over the advertis.e.m.e.nts. At least, I glanced at first, but soon I was absorbed; for they were wonderful.

I had never dreamed that there were such kind, thoughtful men in business as the ones who advertised in those fat American magazines,--and so clever, too; they seemed to have spent their whole past lives simply in studying things, so that eventually they could make you happy and save you trouble.

They lived only for that, those incredibly nice men. There were photographs of some of them with their advertis.e.m.e.nts, so that you could know what they were really like, and have even more confidence in them than you would if you hadn't seen their style of features. There were two or three whose profiles I could _never_ get to feel at home with, even if I had been born with one of them; but the majority were brave, energetic,--oh! terribly energetic-looking men, as indeed they would need to be, if they were really to accomplish all the things they promised, not only for you but for the hundreds of thousands of other people who might be inclined to put them to the test.

There were things like this in the magazines,--all the magazines:

"Listen to me, Miss (or Madam). I have something to say which will interest You. Do you want a Perfect Complexion? Don't move. Sit still in your chair. Cut out this Coupon. Slip it into a stamped envelope, and we will give You what You want by return of post."

"Why Suffer? You have Headache. We have the Cure. We ask nothing better than to take away the One and give you the Other."

"Let us lend you a Beautiful Diamond Ring to wear till you are tired of it. When you are, we will take it back, and return you all but five per cent. of your money."

"Don't come to Us. Let us come to You, and bring You Something. You have always Wanted Health, Wealth, Wisdom."

"We would like to give You some Friendly Advice. We don't want a Red Cent for it."

"You are going to have a Party, and you are worried. Don't worry.

Just 'phone to us, and we will arrange Everything for you better than you could yourself, with no trouble to you and your servants."

There were so many splendid things to have, to wear, and to eat, advertised in the same kind, fatherly way, that I felt as if I had unconsciously yearned for each one of them more than for anything else in my life, and now it had been put into my head in all its fatal fascination, I couldn't possible exist another day without sending for it, to one in that procession of n.o.ble, self-sacrificing, American advertisers. I felt, too, that if anything disagreeable should happen to me, like a railway or motor car accident, I could spend the rest of my existence lying down, and still the splendid things would come running to me, if I just 'phoned or flung a stamp into s.p.a.ce.

I mentioned something of the sort to Sally. "I wonder they don't offer to choose you a husband," said I. "I didn't know advertis.e.m.e.nts could be so interesting."

"What about your own?" she asked. "They're a hundred times quainter."

I thought hard about the _Morning Post_ and _The Queen_, but couldn't remember anything extraordinary in the advertising line, and said so.

"Perhaps you, being English, don't see anything extraordinary about a clergyman's wife offering to exchange a canary bird for six months'

subscription to _Punch_; or the widow of an officer earnestly desiring an idiot lady to board with her; or a decayed gentlewoman inviting the public to give her five pounds; but we, being American, _do_," replied Sally. "Why, I'd rather read the advertis.e.m.e.nts in some of your morning papers and ladies' weeklies than I would eat."

"Talking of eating, it's lunch-time," said Potter. "There'll be a big menagerie feeding in the dining-car, but there's no good waiting for it to finish, as then there'll be no food left."

So we took his suggestion; and there was a crowd, but he had secured a table for four, and we squeezed ourselves into the places.

I have travelled abroad with Mother and Vic, where there were Americans in the dining-car, and they have been cross because they didn't get served quickly and they have said things. But in this car going to Newport, you forgot what you had had last before the next course came, yet n.o.body seemed to mind. They were as patient as lambs, and simply took what was given them when they could get it, although they looked as if they were used to everything very nice at home. I suppose it must have been because they were all Americans together, eating American things, with American waiters to wait upon them and no foreigners who ought to know they wouldn't stand that sort of nonsense, hanged if they would.

Some of Mrs. Ess Kay's servants had gone on before us, and some were in our train. Exactly how it was managed, I don't know; but things that would worry us into grey-haired graves don't seem to bother Americans at all; and there was the motor waiting when we arrived at the end of our journey, with a private motor omnibus for the servants and luggage.

Sometimes it is rather a pretty sight at the station where you have to get out for Battlemead, or for the village, when one of the best trains from Town comes in, especially if Mother or anyone at other big places in the neighbourhood should be having a house party. There are several rather good victorias with nice sleek horses, a handsome brougham or two, a motor car or two, to say nothing of dog carts and phaetons. But it is a poor show compared to the scene at Newport. I felt suddenly as if I were at the theatre, and the curtain had just gone up on a brilliant new act.

There was a crowd of gorgeous carriages; and jet-black varnish, gold and silver harness, and horses' brown and chestnut backs all glittered blindingly in the sun. But there were even more motors than carriages, it seemed; or else they were more conspicuous; and many were being driven by beautiful girls in muslins such as we would wear to a garden party, with nothing on their pretty heads except their splendid hair, dressed everlastingly in the same way.