The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 235

"You mean provincial life. Everybody knows everybody else."

"Well," King retorted, with some spirit, "it is not a place where people pretend not to know each other, as if their salvation depended on it."

"Oh, I see; hospitable, frank, cordial-all that. Stanhope, do you know, I think you are a little demoralized this summer. Did you fall in love with a Southern belle? Who was there?"

"Well, all the South, pretty much. I didn't fall in love with all the belles; we were there only two weeks. Oh! there was a Mrs. Farquhar there."

"Georgiana Randolph! Georgie! How did she look? We were at Madame Sequin's together, and a couple of seasons in Paris. Georgie! She was the handsomest, the wittiest, the most fascinating woman I ever saw. I hope she didn't give you a turn?"

"Oh, no. But we were very good friends. She is a very handsome woman --perhaps you would expect me to say handsome still; but that seems a sort of treason to her mature beauty."

"And who else?"

"Oh, the s...o...b..s from New Orleans, the Slifers from Mobile--no end of people--some from Philadelphia--and Ohio."

"Ohio? Those Bensons!" said she, turning sharply on him.

"Yes, those Bensons, Penelope. Why not?"

"Oh, nothing. It's a free country. I hope, Stanhope, you didn't encourage her. You might make her very unhappy."

"I trust not," said King stoutly. "We are engaged."

"Engaged!" repeated Mrs. Glow, in a tone that implied a whole world of astonishment and improbability.

"Yes, and you are just in time to congratulate us. There they are!" Mr.

Benson, Mrs. Benson, and Irene were coming down the walk from the deer park. King turned to meet them, but Mrs. Glow was close at his side, and apparently as pleased at seeing them again as the lover. Nothing could be more charming than the grace and welcome she threw into her salutations.

She shook hands with Mr. Benson; she was delighted to meet Mrs. Benson again, and gave her both her little hands; she almost embraced Irene, placed a hand on each shoulder, kissed her on the cheek, and said something in a low voice that brought the blood to the girl's face and suffused her eyes with tenderness.

When the party returned to the hotel the two women were walking lovingly arm in arm, and King was following after, in the more prosaic atmosphere of Cyrusville, Ohio. The good old lady began at once to treat King as one of the family; she took his arm, and leaned heavily on it, as they walked, and confided to him all her complaints. The White Sulphur waters, she said, had not done her a mite of good; she didn't know but she'd oughter see a doctor, but he said that it warn't nothing but indigestion. Now the White Sulphur agreed with Irene better than any other place, and I guess that I know the reason why, Mr. King, she said, with a faintly facetious smile. Meantime Mrs. Glow was talking to Irene on the one topic that a maiden is never weary of, her lover; and so adroitly mingled praises of him with flattery of herself that the girl's heart went out to her in entire trust.

"She is a charming girl," said Mrs. Glow to King, later. "She needs a little forming, but that will be easy when she is separated from her family. Don't interrupt me. I like her. I don't say I like it. But if you will go out of your set, you might do a great deal worse. Have you written to your uncle and to your aunt?"

"No; I don't know why, in a matter wholly personal to myself, I should call a family council. You represent the family completely, Penelope."

"Yes. Thanks to my happening to be here. Well, I wouldn't write to them if I were you. It's no use to disturb the whole connection now. By the way, Imogene Cypher was at Newport after you left; she is more beautiful than ever--just lovely; no other girl there had half the attention."

"I am glad to hear it," said King, who did not fancy the drift their conversation was taking. "I hope she will make a good match. Brains are not necessary, you know."

"Stanhope, I never said that--never. I might have said she wasn't a bas bleu. No more is she. But she has beauty, and a good temper, and money.

It isn't the cleverest women who make the best wives, sir."

"Well, I'm not objecting to her being a wife. Only it does not follow that, because my uncle and aunts are in love with her, I should want to marry her."

"I said nothing about marriage, my touchy friend. I am not advising you to be engaged to two women at the same time. And I like Irene immensely."

It was evident that she had taken a great fancy to the girl. They were always together; it seemed to happen so, and King could hardly admit to himself that Mrs. Glow was de trop as a third. Mr. Bartlett Glow was very polite to King and his friend, and forever had one excuse and another for taking them off with him--the races or a lounge about town.

He showed them one night, I am sorry to say, the inside of the Temple of Chance and its decorous society, its splendid buffet, the quiet tables of rouge et noir, and the highly respectable attendants--aged men, whitehaired, in evening costume, devout and almost G.o.dly in appearance, with faces chastened to resignation and patience with a wicked world, sedate and venerable as the deacons in a Presbyterian church. He was lonesome and wanted company, and, besides, the women liked to be by themselves occasionally.

One might be amused at the Saratoga show without taking an active part in it, and indeed n.o.body did seem to take a very active part in it.

Everybody was looking on. People drove, visited the springs--in a vain expectation that excessive drinking of the medicated waters would counteract the effect of excessive gormandizing at the hotels--sat about in the endless rows of armchairs on the piazzas, crowded the heavily upholstered parlors, promenaded in the corridors, listened to the music in the morning, and again in the afternoon, and thronged the stairways and pa.s.sages, and blocked up the entrance to the ballrooms. b.a.l.l.s? Yes, with dress de rigueur, many beautiful women in wonderful toilets, a few debutantes, a scarcity of young men, and a delicious band--much better music than at the White Sulphur.

And yet no society. But a wonderful agglomeration, the artist was saying. It is a robust sort of place. If Newport is the queen of the watering-places, this is the king. See how well fed and fat the people are, men and women large and expansive, richly dressed, prosperous --looking! What a contrast to the family sort of life at the White Sulphur! Here n.o.body, apparently, cares for anybody else--not much; it is not to be expected that people should know each other in such a heterogeneous concern; you see how comparatively few greetings there are on the piazzas and in the parlors. You notice, too, that the types are not so distinctively American as at the Southern resort--full faces, thick necks--more like Germans than Americans. And then the everlasting white hats. And I suppose it is not certain that every man in a tall white hat is a politician, or a railway magnate, or a sporting man.

These big hotels are an epitome of expansive, gorgeous American life. At the Grand Union, King was No. 1710, and it seemed to him that he walked the length of the town to get to his room after ascending four stories.

He might as well, so far as exercise was concerned, have taken an apartment outside. And the dining-room. Standing at the door, he had a vista of an eighth of a mile of small tables, sparkling with brilliant service of gla.s.s and porcelain, chandeliers and frescoed ceiling. What perfect appointments! what well-trained waiters!--perhaps they were not waiters, for he was pa.s.sed from one "officer" to another "officer" down to his place. At the tables silent couples and restrained family parties, no hilarity, little talking; and what a contrast this was to the happy-go-lucky service and jollity of the White Sulphur! Then the interior parks of the United States and the Grand Union, with corridors and cottages, close-clipped turf, banks of flowers, forest trees, fountains, and at night, when the band filled all the air with seductive strains, the electric and the colored lights, gleaming through the foliage and dancing on fountains and greensward, made a scene of enchantment. Each hotel was a village in itself, and the thousands of guests had no more in common than the frequenters of New York hotels and theatres. But what a paradise for lovers!

"It would be lonesome enough but for you, Irene," Stanhope said, as they sat one night on the inner piazza of the Grand Union, surrendering themselves to all the charms of the scene.

"I love it all," she said, in the full tide of her happiness.

On another evening they were at the illumination of the Congress Spring Park. The scene seemed the creation of magic. By a skillful arrangement of the colored globes an illusion of vastness was created, and the little enclosure, with its glowing lights, was like the starry heavens for extent. In the ma.s.s of white globes and colored lanterns of paper the eye was deceived as to distances. The allies stretched away interminably, the pines seemed enormous, and the green hillsides mountainous. Nor were charming single effects wanting. Down the winding walk from the hill, touched by a distant electric light, the loitering people, in couples and in groups, seemed no more in real life than the supernumeraries in a scene at the opera. Above, in the illuminated foliage, were doubtless a castle and a broad terrace, with a row of statues, and these gay promenaders were ladies and cavaliers in an old-time masquerade. The gilded kiosk on the island in the centre of the miniature lake and the fairy bridge that leads to it were outlined by colored globes; and the lake, itself set about with brilliants, reflected kiosk and bridge and lights, repeating a hundredfold the fantastic scene, while from their island retreat the band sent out through the illumined night strains of sentiment and gayety and sadness. In the intervals of the music there was silence, as if the great throng were too deeply enjoying this feast of the senses to speak. Perhaps a foreigner would have been impressed with the decorous respectability of the a.s.sembly; he would have remarked that there were no little tables scattered about the ground, no boys running about with foaming mugs of beer, no noise, no loud talking; and how restful to all the senses!

Mrs. Bartlett Glow had the whim to devote herself to Mrs. Benson, and was repaid by the acquisition of a great deal of information concerning the social and domestic, life in Cyrusville, Ohio, and the maternal ambition for Irene. Stanhope and Irene sat a little apart from the others, and gave themselves up to the witchery of the hour. It would not be easy to reproduce in type all that they said; and what was most important to them, and would be most interesting to the reader, are the things they did not say--the half exclamations, the delightful silences, the tones, the looks that are the sign language of lovers. It was Irene who first broke the spell of this delightful mode of communication, and in a pause of the music said, "Your cousin has been telling me of your relatives in New York, and she told me more of yourself than you ever did."

"Very likely. Trust your friends for that. I hope she gave me a good character."

"Oh, she has the greatest admiration for you, and she said the family have the highest expectations of your career. Why didn't you tell me you were the child of such hopes? It half frightened me."

"It must be appalling. What did she say of my uncle and aunts?"

"Oh, I cannot tell you, except that she raised an image in my mind of an awful vision of ancient family and exclusiveness, the most fastidious, delightful, conventional people, she said, very old family, looked down upon Washington Irving, don't you know, because he wrote. I suppose she wanted to impress me with the value of the prize I've drawn, dear. But I should like you just as well if your connections had not looked down on Irving. Are they so very high and mighty?"

"Oh, dear, no. Much like other people. My aunts are the dearest old ladies, just a little nearsighted, you know, about seeing people that are not--well, of course, they live in a rather small world. My uncle is a bachelor, rather particular, not what you would call a genial old man; been abroad a good deal, and moved mostly in our set; sometimes I think he cares more for his descent than for his position at the bar, which is a very respectable one, by the way. You know what an old bachelor is who never has had anybody to shake him out of his contemplation of his family?"

"Do you think," said Irene, a little anxiously, letting her hand rest a moment upon Stanhope's, "that they will like poor little me? I believe I am more afraid of the aunts than of the uncle. I don't believe they will be as nice as your cousin."

"Of course they will like you. Everybody likes you. The aunts are just a little old-fashioned, that is all. Habit has made them draw a social circle with a small radius. Some have one kind of circle, some another.

Of course my aunts are sorry for any one who is not descended from the Van Schlovenhovens--the old Van Schlovenhoven had the first brewery of the colony in the time of Peter Stuyvesant. In New York it's a family matter, in Philadelphia it's geographical. There it's a question whether you live within the lines of Chestnut Street and Spruce Street--outside of these in the city you are socially impossible: Mrs. Cortlandt told me that two Philadelphia ladies who had become great friends at a summer resort--one lived within and the other without the charmed lines--went back to town together in the autumn. At the station when they parted, the 'inside' lady said to the other: 'Good-by. It has been such a pleasure to know you! I suppose I shall see you sometimes at Moneymaker's!' Moneymaker's is the Bon Marche of Philadelphia."

The music ceased; the band were hurrying away; the people all over the grounds were rising to go, lingering a little, reluctant to leave the enchanting scene. Irene wished, with a sigh, that it might never end; unreal as it was, it was more native to her spirit than that future which her talk with Stanhope had opened to her contemplation. An ill-defined apprehension possessed her in spite of the rea.s.suring presence of her lover and her perfect confidence in the sincerity of his pa.s.sion; and this feeling was somehow increased by the appearance of Mrs. Glow with her mother; she could not shake off the uneasy suggestion of the contrast.

At the hour when the ladies went to their rooms the day was just beginning for a certain cla.s.s of the habitues. The parlors were nearly deserted, and few chairs were occupied on the piazzas, but the ghosts of another generation seemed to linger, especially in the offices and barroom. Flitting about were to be seen the social heroes who had a notoriety thirty and forty years ago in the newspapers. This dried-up old man in a bronze wig, scuffling along in list slippers, was a famous criminal lawyer in his day; this gentleman, who still wears an air of gallantry, and is addressed as General, had once a reputation for successes in the drawing-room as well as on the field of Mars; here is a genuine old beau, with the unmistakable self-consciousness of one who has been a favorite of the s.e.x, but who has slowly decayed in the midst of his cosmetics; here saunter along a couple of actors with the air of being on the stage. These people all have the "nightcap" habit, and drift along towards the bar-room--the last brilliant scene in the drama of the idle day, the necessary portal to the realm of silence and sleep.

This is a large apartment, brightly lighted, with a bar extending across one end of it. Modern taste is conspicuous here, nothing is gaudy, colors are subdued, and its decorations are simple even the bar itself is refined, substantial, decorous, wanting entirely the meretricious glitter and barbarous ornamentation of the old structures of this sort, and the attendants have wholly laid aside the smart antics of the former bartender, and the customers are swiftly and silently served by the deferential waiters. This is one of the most striking changes that King noticed in American life.

There is a certain sort of life-whether it is worth seeing is a question that we can see nowhere else, and for an hour Mr. Glow and King and Forbes, sipping their raspberry shrub in a retired corner of the bar-room, were interested spectators of the scene. Through the padded swinging doors entered, as in a play, character after character. Each actor as he entered stopped for a moment and stared about him, and in this act revealed his character-his conceit, his slyness, his bravado, his self-importance. There was great variety, but practically one prevailing type, and that the New York politician. Most of them were from the city, though the country politician apes the city politician as much as possible, but he lacks the exact air, notwithstanding the black broadcloth and the white hat. The city men are of two varieties--the smart, perky-nosed, vulgar young ward worker, and the heavy-featured, gross, fat old fellow. One after another they glide in, with an always conscious air, swagger off to the bar, strike att.i.tudes in groups, one with his legs spread, another with a foot behind on tiptoe, another leaning against the counter, and so pose, and drink "My respects"--all rather solemn and stiff, impressed perhaps by the decorousness of the place, and conscious of their good clothes. Enter together three stout men, a yard across the shoulders, each with an enormous development in front, waddle up to the bar, attempt to form a triangular group for conversation, but find themselves too far apart to talk in that position, and so arrange themselves side by side--a most distinguished-looking party, like a portion of a swell-front street in Boston. To them swaggers up a young sport, like one of Thackeray's figures in the "Irish Sketch-Book"--short, in a white hat, poor face, impudent manner, poses before the swell fronts, and tosses off his gla.s.s. About a little table in one corner are three excessively "ugly mugs," leering at each other and pouring down champagne. These men are all dressed as nearly like gentlemen as the tailor can make them, but even he cannot change their hard, brutal faces. It is not their fault that money and clothes do not make a gentleman; they are well fed and vulgarly prosperous, and if you inquire you will find that their women are in silks and laces. This is a good place to study the rulers of New York; and impressive as they are in appearance, it is a relief to notice that they unbend to each other, and hail one another familiarly as "Billy" and "Tommy." Do they not ape what is most prosperous and successful in American life? There is one who in make-up, form, and air, even to the cut of his side-whiskers, is an exact counterpart of the great railway king. Here is a heavy-faced young fellow in evening dress, perhaps endeavoring to act the part of a gentleman, who has come from an evening party unfortunately a little "slewed," but who does not know how to sustain the character, for presently he becomes very familiar and confidential with the dignified colored waiter at the buffet, who requires all his native politeness to maintain the character of a gentleman for two.

If these men had millions, could they get any more enjoyment out of life?

To have fine clothes, drink champagne, and pose in a fashionable bar-room in the height of the season--is not this the apotheosis of the "heeler"

and the ward "worker"? The scene had a fascination for the artist, who declared that he never tired watching the evolutions of the foreign element into the full bloom of American citizenship.

XII

LAKE GEORGE, AND SARATOGA AGAIN