Lady Betty Across the Water Part 17

Now, I saw Mrs. Ess Kay and Potter in their element. There was no suggestion that the people were not good enough for them, here. Mrs.

Ess Kay radiated smiles, bowing cordially right and left, sometimes even more cordially than her friends bowed in return. Potter was taking off his straw hat and waving it. There were evidently no n.o.bodies here.

They were delighted to see everybody, for Everybody was Somebody, and some, but not all, of the Everybodies were delighted to see them. Sally alone remained unmoved; and I was glad to have her to keep me in countenance, in this new act, where I knew none of the players or what part I should be called upon to take by and by.

I had heard so much that was dazzling about Newport, which I had imagined a great white city by the sea, that the part I saw first after leaving the railway station was distinctly a blow. "_This_ quiet, half-asleep village the greatest watering place of America, perhaps of the world!" I said to myself, almost scornfully; but when we had bowled into Bellevue Avenue, where Mrs. Ess Kay said that her cottage was, I began to understand.

I wasn't sure at first sight what I did think of the great splendid houses, with mere pocket-handkerchief lawns such as people would have for suburban villas at home; but they gave me a tremendous impression of concentrated wealth. This seemed a place where everybody was rich, where millions were at a discount, and I thought--whatever else I did think--that it would be a place to stop away from unless you were happy--happy and strong and gay.

But there was one thing I was very sure of. The Avenue itself was more full than our Park in the topmost height of the Season.

People don't look happy, driving in the Park, not even the pretty people. I have found that, whenever I have been, and though that isn't so very often yet, Vic says it is really and truly always the same.

The great beauties look bored, and some of them have their faces painted and the air of wearing transformations; but not one of the charming women driving up and down Bellevue Avenue that afternoon looked bored, and hardly any were painted. I never saw people appear to be so delighted with life, and so thoroughly alive, as if the glorious sea air were frothing in their veins, like champagne.

In the Park you don't see people laughing and talking to each other in carriages. They simply lean back on the cushions with an expression that seems to say, "This is the only thing I can think of to do, so I'm doing it just to kill time." Probably they don't really feel like that, but they look it. And as for the people who sit and watch, or stand and wait, they've usually a strained expression in their eyes, as if they were afraid of missing somebody or something of importance.

But here in Bellevue Avenue everybody was smiling and chatting; and I noticed that the men weren't so preternaturally alert as the men in New York. Some had actually taken time to get fat, which, so far I'd had reason to suppose, was a thing that never happened to American men.

And somehow the young girls had the air of being a great deal more important than we are at home. You could tell from the very way they sat and held up their heads in the motor cars and dog carts and other things, that they thought the world was theirs, and they were _the_ people to know in it. One was driving a tandem, and she didn't look more than seventeen. I was glad when she bowed to Mrs. Ess Kay, because she was pretty and I made up my mind that I should like to know her.

"That's Cora Pitchley's step-daughter, Carolyn," said Mrs. Ess Kay. "Do you remember Margaret Taylour telling anecdotes of Cora? She doesn't bother much with the girl. People are talking about them both rather a lot this year, they say."

"Carolyn," I repeated. "What a pretty name, and how American-sounding, somehow. Fancy her driving tandem, with only that tiny groom if anything should happen. She must be plucky. How old is she?"

"Eighteen. She was one of last October's buds."

"October's buds," I repeated. "It sounds poetical--but unseasonable."

Potter answered with a laugh.

"Yes, we like things out of season in America, so we bring out most of our buds in October. Then they have the whole winter to bloom in, you know, before they're grafted on another stalk."

"Here comes Cora herself, now, in Tom Doremus's Electra," said Mrs. Ess Kay. "It must make Mrs. Van der Windt wild, his going so much with the Pitchley lot, as she can't stand them, and would keep Cora and Carolyn out of everything in Newport if she could."

I didn't wonder at Mr. Doremus, though, as I bowed to him and found time to know exactly how Mrs. Pitchley looked and what she wore, in the half second before our two motors flashed apart. I thought her splendidly handsome, and I liked the gleam in her dark grey eyes, which promised fun. But just then our chauffeur slowed down before a house which seemed to cover about a quarter of a mile of ground.

"Welcome to my little cottage, dear Betty," said Mrs. Ess Kay.

If this is her idea of a cottage, I don't know what her conception of a castle must be! And yet, when you come to a.n.a.lyse it, there really is something about the place which suggests a kind of glorified, t.i.tanic cottage, rather too grand for a king, unless he were a fairy king, but possibly suited to an Emperor. But I do believe rich Americans think that what is good enough for a king is only _just_ good enough for them at a pinch;--and I've heard Mrs. Ess Kay call Windsor dreadfully shabby.

Her "cottage" looks as it were built of grey satinwood, but it is really shingles; and shingles can be the loveliest material imaginable, it seems, for the covering of a house, especially with a foundation of granite sparkling with mica. They are soft and shimmery in their tints, these shingles, as a dove's breast; some are dark, some light, but all are feathery in effect; and altogether The Moorings, with its gables, and porches, and bow windows, and balconies and wide verandahs, gives the effect of a huge, ruffly and motherly grey bird with her wings spread wide to shelter her birdlings.

I felt quite content to be one of the birdlings as I went in. I am sorry to say I'm not a bit fonder of Mrs. Ess Kay than I was in the ship; but the "cottage" looked so hospitable and jolly, and the air and the sunshine sparkled so, that I couldn't help feeling that it was pleasant to be young, and alive, and on the threshold of amusing new adventures. I was happy, and I would have liked to sing. I wanted to be very good friends with everybody, including Potter; and I fell in love with the house, the minute I set foot on the front verandah.

The great gorgeous palace in New York is far grander, of course, and must have cost four or five times as much; still, only very rich people could have built and furnished The Moorings, or afford to live in it.

There is a big square hall, not to be compared to ours at Battlemead, of course, though the Persian rugs and the pictures are fine; but the staircase is peculiarly charming. It looks a staircase made for sitting out dances with men you like, and evidently it knows its value as a flirting place and lives up to it, for there are fat, bright-coloured silk and satin cushions resting invitingly against the wall, on each one of the shallow steps. Most of the rooms are enormous, and consist half of quaint leaded windows, with seats underneath. But better than anything else is the verandah, which runs all round the house, and is not only as wide as a good-sized room, but is fitted up like a succession of rooms. The delicate bead curtains that glitter like a rain of green and white and rose-coloured jewels give you a feeling of privacy, for you can see through them without being seen. The satiny grey floor is half covered with exquisite rugs; and everywhere there are Oriental tables and chairs, and cushiony sofas and green hammocks with frilly pink pillows, and screens, and bowers of palms and bright azaleas. I should like to live on that verandah swinging slowly in a hammock, and looking through the cascade of glittering beads at the sea and sky. I spoke this thought out aloud, but Potter said I would soon learn that there wasn't much time in Newport for looking at the sea and sky.

"Why, isn't that partly what you come to Newport for?" I asked.

They all laughed. "You just wait and find out," answered Potter. "And we'll work you pretty hard doing it."

Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally took me up to show me my room and theirs, and Potter said that he would go round and look in at the Casino, but he would come back and have tea with us, as soon as he had seen "what there was doing."

Each bedroom is done in a colour, and mine is the "white room." It was almost too heavy-sweet with some powerful flower fragrance, when we went in. For an instant I could not think what it was; but in another moment I had seen on tables and cabinets and window shelves, great bowls of water lilies, rising out of their dark leaves like moons out of cloud banks.

"From Potter," said Mrs. Ess Kay. "He telegraphed for them to be here, and sent word to the servants just how he wanted them arranged. I must say he does think of rather pretty things when he cares to please. And he _does_ care to please you, Betty. But you know that without my telling you, don't you, my Lady Witch?"

It was hard-hearted of me, but all my pleasure in the gleaming white beauties went out, like a bursting bubble. It gets on my nerves to be grateful to Potter three or four times a day!

Nevertheless, when he came back (which he did after we had dressed, and were having tea behind the rain of glittering gla.s.s) I had to thank him prettily. He was pleased, but was evidently thinking about something else.

"I didn't get to the Casino, after all," said he. "I met Mrs. Pitchley going out to make a call (she was on her way home, it seems, when we met her) and she offered to turn back if I'd go with her, so I did."

"Now, see here, Potter Parker," broke in Mrs. Ess Kay, "I don't wish you to set up as another of Cora Pitchley's champions. It's all very well for Margaret Taylour to be forever quoting her; and she is fun, but she goes around being original in the wrong way, that n.o.body admires. That is, she does what she wants and not what other people want her to do. Margaret spends her summers at Blue Bay, and I spend mine at Newport, and I'm not going to have Mrs. Van der Windt down on me, or on my brother, either, if I can help it."

"Thanks for good advice," replied Potter airily. "But may be, when you hear what Mrs. Pitchley had to say to me, you'll change your tune."

Mrs. Ess Kay raised her eyebrows, but her eyes would look curious.

"What could Cora Pitchley say that would have any particular effect on me?" she asked.

"She knows for a fact that she isn't to be asked to the Pink Ball on the twenty-third, and that Mrs. Van der Windt herself scratched your name off the list before she sailed for Europe."

Mrs. Ess Kay's face went a dull, ugly red, and she laughed a loud laugh which sounded as if it would be the same colour. "As for Cora, I can _quite_ understand; but I don't believe the woman would have dared to try to exclude _me_," she said in a quivery voice.

"Why shouldn't she have dared, when you come to think of it?"

"Well, anyhow--she don't dare _now_."

"No, naturally, she won't dare now. You're as smart as they make 'em, Kath."

Then, for some reason, they both turned and gazed at me with a "thank-goodness-here's-a-floating-spar" sort of look, while Sally examined the grounds in her tea-cup, with that funny little three-cornered smile of hers.

"Was that the thing you thought would change me toward Cora Pitchley?"

asked Mrs. Ess Kay.

"Yes, I thought it would give you a sort of fellow feeling."

"It doesn't," said she, shortly, "and n.o.body but a man could have thought it would. It makes me feel all the more that I don't want to be mixed up with her, for--for Betty's sake."

Potter whistled, with one thumb in a breast pocket. "For the che-ild's sake," he remarked dramatically; and Mrs. Ess Kay looked angry.

"I shan't invite the Pitchleys to my big affair," said she; "the affair I'm going to have for Betty."

"Oh, but you must please not put yourself out for me!" I exclaimed. "I should be so sorry to have you do that."

Potter laughed "Don't you try to rob her of her dearest triumph, Lady Daisy. You're the big gem for the middle of the setting. You're the Kohinoor."

"Potter! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, talking to her like that," said Mrs. Ess Kay. "But all he means, Betty, is that I shall be very glad to do anything I can to make your visit pleasant; and it will be no trouble at all for me to give an entertainment, you may be quite sure."