A Little Journey in the World

XVI

Uncle Jerry was sitting on the piazza of the Ocean House, absorbed in the stock reports of a New York journal, answering at random the occasional observations of his wife, who filled up one of the spacious chairs near him—a florid woman, with diamonds in her ears, who had the resolute air of enjoying herself. It was an August Newport morning, when there is a salty freshness in the air, but a temperature that discourages exertion. A pony phaeton dashed by containing two ladies. The ponies were cream-colored, with flowing manes and tails, and harness of black and gold; the phaeton had yellow wheels with a black body; the diminutive page with folded arms, on the seat behind, wore a black jacket and yellow breeches. The lady who held the yellow silk reins was a blonde with dark eyes. As they flashed by, the lady on the seat with her bowed, and Mr. Hollowell returned the salute.

“Who's that?” asked Mrs. Hollowell.

“That's Mrs. Henderson.”

“And the other one?”

“I don't know her. She knows how to handle the ribbons, though.”

“I seen her at the Casino the other night, before you come, with that tandem-driving count. I don't believe he's any more count than you are.”

“Oh, he's all right. He's one of the Spanish legation. This is just the place for counts. I shouldn't wonder, Maria, if you'd like to be a countess. We can afford it—the Countess Jeremiah, eh?” and Uncle Jerry's eyes twinkled.

“Don't be a goose, Mr. Hollowell,” bringing her fat hands round in front of her, so that she could see the sparkle of the diamond rings on them. “She's as pretty as a picture, that girl, but I should think a good wind would blow her away. I shouldn't want to have her drive me round.”

“Jorkins has sailed,” said Mr. Hollowell, looking up from his paper. “The Planet reporter tried to interview him, but he played sick, said he was just going over and right back for a change. I guess it will be long enough before they get a chance at him again.”

“I'm glad he's gone. I hope the papers will mind their own business for a spell.”

The house of the Eschelles was on the sea, looking over a vast sweep of lawn to the cliff and the dimpling blue water of the first beach. It was known as the Yellow Villa. Coming from the elegance of Lenox, Margaret was surprised at the magnificence and luxury of this establishment, the great drawing-rooms, the spacious chambers, the wide verandas, the pictures, the flowers, the charming nooks and recessed windows, with handy book-stands, and tables littered with the freshest and most-talked-of issues from the press of Paris, Madrid, and London. Carmen had taken a hint from Henderson's bachelor apartment, which she had visited once with her mother, and though she had no literary taste, further than to dip in here and there to what she found toothsome and exciting in various languages, yet she knew the effect of the atmosphere of books, and she had a standing order at a book-shop for whatever was fresh and likely to come into notice.

And Carmen was a delightful hostess, both because her laziness gave an air of repose to the place, and she had the tact never to appear to make any demands upon her guests, and because she knew when to be piquant and exhibit personal interest, and when to show even a little abandon of vivacity. Society flowed through her house without any obstructions. It was scarcely ever too early and never too late for visitors. Those who were intimate used to lounge in and take up a book, or pass an hour on the veranda, even when none of the family were at home. Men had a habit of dropping in for a five o'clock cup of tea, and where the men went the women needed little urging to follow. At first there had been some reluctance about recognizing the Eschelles fully, and there were still houses that exhibited a certain reserve towards them, but the example of going to this house set by the legations, the members of which enjoyed a chat with Miss Eschelle in the freedom of their own tongues and the freedom of her tongue, went far to break down this barrier. They were spoken of occasionally as “those Eschelles,” but almost everybody went there, and perhaps enjoyed it all the more because there had been a shade of doubt about it.

Margaret's coming was a good card for Carmen. The little legend about her French ancestry in Newport, and the romantic marriage in Rochambeau's time, had been elaborated in the local newspaper, and when she appeared the ancestral flavor, coupled with the knowledge of Henderson's accumulating millions, lent an interest and a certain charm to whatever she said and did. The Eschelle house became more attractive than ever before, so much so that Mrs. Eschelle declared that she longed for the quiet of Paris. To her motherly apprehension there was no result in this whirl of gayety, no serious intention discoverable in any of the train that followed Carmen. “You act, child,” she said, “as if youth would last forever.”

Margaret entered into this life as if she had been born to it. Perhaps she was. Perhaps most people never find the career for which they are fitted, and struggle along at cross-purposes with themselves. We all thought that Margaret's natural bent was for some useful and self-sacrificing work in the world, and never could have imagined that under any circumstances she would develop into a woman of fashion.

“I intend to read a great deal this month,” she said to Carmen on her arrival, as she glanced at the litter of books.

“That was my intention,” replied Carmen; “now we can read together. I'm taking Spanish lessons of Count Crispo. I've learned two Spanish poems and a Castilian dance.”

“Is he married?”

“Not now. He told me, when he was teaching me the steps, that his heart was buried in Seville.”

“He seems to be full of sentiment.”

“Perhaps that is because his salary is so small. Mamma says, of all things an impecunious count! But he is amusing.”

“But what do you care for money?” asked Margaret, by way of testing Carmen's motives.

“Nothing, my dear. But deliver me from a husband who is poor; he would certainly be a tyrant. Besides, if I ever marry, it will be with an American.”

“But suppose you fall in love with a poor man?”

“That would be against my principles. Never fall below your ideals—that is what I heard a speaker say at the Town and Country Club, and that is my notion. There is no safety for you if you lose your principles.”

“That depends upon what they are,” said Margaret, in the same bantering tone.

“That sounds like good Mr. Lyon. I suspect he thought I hadn't any. Mamma said I tried to shock him; but he shocked me. Do you think you could live with such a man twenty-four hours, even if he had his crown on?”

“I can imagine a great deal worse husbands than the Earl of Chisholm.”

“Well, I haven't any imagination.”

There was no reading that day nor the next. In the morning there was a drive with the ponies through town, in the afternoon in the carriage by the sea, with a couple of receptions, the five o'clock tea, with its chatter, and in the evening a dinner party for Margaret. One day sufficed to launch her, and there-after Carmen had only admiration for the unflagging spirit which Margaret displayed. “If you were only unmarried,” she said, “what larks we could have!” Margaret looked grave at this, but only for a moment, for she well knew that she could not please her husband better than by enjoying the season to the full. He never criticised her for taking the world as it is; and she confessed to herself that life went very pleasantly in a house where there were never any questions raised about duties. The really serious thought in Carmen's mind was that perhaps after all a woman had no real freedom until she was married. And she began to be interested in Margaret's enjoyment of the world.

It was not, after all, a new world, only newly arranged, like another scene in the same play. The actors, who came and went, were for the most part the acquaintances of the Washington winter, and the callers and diners and opera-goers and charity managers of the city. In these days Margaret was quite at home with the old set: the British Minister, the Belgian, the French, the Spanish, the Mexican, the German, and the Italian, with their families and attaches—nothing was wanting, not even the Chinese mandarin, who had rooms at the hotel, going about everywhere in the conscientious discharge of his duties as ambassador to American society, a great favorite on account of his silk apparel, which gave him the appearance of a clumsy woman, and the everlasting, three-thousand-year-old smile on his broad face, punctiliously leaving in every house a big flaring red piece of paper which the ladies pinned up for a decoration; a picture of helpless, childlike enjoyment, and almost independent of the interpreter who followed him about, when he had learned, upon being introduced to a lady, or taking a cup of tea, to say “good-by” as distinctly as an articulating machine; a truly learned man, setting an example of civility and perfect self-possession, but keenly observant of the oddities of the social life to which his missionary government had accredited him. One would like to have heard the comments of the minister and his suite upon our manners; but perhaps they were too polite to make any even in their seclusion. Certain it is that no one ever heard any of the legation express any opinion but the most suave and flattering.

And yet they must have been amazed at the activity of this season of repose, the endurance of American women who rode to the fox meets, were excited spectators of the polo, played lawn-tennis, were incessantly dining and calling, and sat through long dinners served with the formality and dullness and the swarms of liveried attendants of a royal feast. And they could not but admire the young men, who did not care for politics or any business beyond the chances of the stock exchange, but who expended an immense amount of energy in the dangerous polo contests, in riding at fences after the scent-bag, in driving tandems and four-in-hands, and yet had time to dress in the cut and shade demanded by every changing hour.

Formerly the annual chronicle of this summer pageant, in which the same women appeared day after day, and the same things were done over and over again, Margaret used to read with a contempt for the life; but that she enjoyed it, now she was a part of it, shows that the chroniclers for the press were unable to catch the spirit of it, the excitement of the personal encounters that made it new every day. Looking at a ball is quite another thing from dancing.

“Yes, it is lively enough,” said Mr. Ponsonby, one afternoon when they had returned from the polo grounds and were seated on the veranda. Mr. Ponsonby was a middle-aged Englishman, whose diplomatic labors at various courts had worn a bald spot on his crown. Carmen had not yet come, and they were waiting for a cup of tea. “And they ride well; but I think I rather prefer the Wild West Show.”

“You Englishmen,” Margaret retorted, “seem to like the uncivilized. Are you all tired of civilization?”

“Of some kinds. When we get through with the London season, you know, Mrs. Henderson, we like to rough it, as you call it, for some months. But, 'pon my word, I can't see much difference between Washington and Newport.”

“We might get up a Wild West Show here, or a prize-fight, for you. Do you know, Mr. Ponsonby, I think it will take full another century for women to really civilize men.”

“How so?”

“Get the cruelty and love of brutal sports out of them.”

“Then you'd cease to like us. Nothing is so insipid, I fancy, to a woman as a man made in her own image.”

“Well, what have you against Newport?”

“Against it? I'm sure nothing could be better than this.” And Mr. Ponsonby allowed his adventurous eyes to rest for a moment upon Margaret's trim figure, until he saw a flush in her face. “This prospect,” he added, turning to the sea, where a few sails took the slant rays of the sun.

“'Where every prospect pleases,”' quoted Margaret, “'and only man—'”

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Henderson; men are not to be considered. The women in Newport would make the place a paradise even if it were a desert.”

“That is another thing I object to in men.”

“What's that?”

“Flattery. You don't say such things to each other at the club. What is your objection to Newport?”

“I didn't say I had any. But if you compel me well, the whole thing seems to be a kind of imitation.”

“How?”

“Oh, the way things go on—the steeple-chasing and fox-hunting, and the carts, and the style of the swell entertainments. Is that ill-natured?”

“Not at all. I like candor, especially English candor. But there is Miss Eschelle.”

Carmen drove up with Count Crispo, threw the reins to the groom, and reached the ground with a touch on the shoulder of the count, who had alighted to help her down.

“Carmen,” said Margaret, “Mr. Ponsonby says that all Newport is just an imitation.”

“Of course it is. We are all imitations, except Count Crispo. I'll bet a cup of tea against a pair of gloves,” said Carmen, who had facility in picking up information, “that Mr. Ponsonby wasn't born in England.”

Mr. Ponsonby looked redder than usual, and then laughed, and said, “Well, I was only three years old when I left Halifax.”

“I knew it!” cried Carmen, clapping her hands. “Now come in and have a cup of English breakfast tea. That's imitation, too.”

“The mistake you made,” said Margaret, “was not being born in Spain.”

“Perhaps it's not irreparable,” the count interposed, with an air of gallantry.

“No, no,” said Carmen, audaciously; “by this time I should be buried in Seville. No, I should prefer Halifax, for it would have been a pleasure to emigrate from Halifax. Was it not, Mr. Ponsonby?”

“I can't remember. But it is a pleasure to sojourn in any land with Miss Eschelle.”

“Thank you. Now you shall have two cups. Come.”

The next morning, Mr. Jerry Hollowell, having inquired where Margaret was staying, called to pay his respects, as he phrased it. Carmen, who was with Margaret in the morning-room, received him with her most distinguished manner. “We all know Mr. Hollowell,” she said.

“That's not always an advantage,” retorted Uncle Jerry, seating himself, and depositing his hat beside his chair. “When do you expect your husband, Mrs. Henderson?”

“Tomorrow. But I don't mean to tell him that you are here—not at first.”

“No,” said Carmen; “we women want Mr. Henderson a little while to ourselves.”

“Why, I'm the idlest man in America. I tell Henderson that he ought to take more time for rest. It's no good to drive things. I like quiet.”

“And you get it in Newport?” Margaret asked.

“Well, my wife and children get what they call quiet. I guess a month of it would use me up. She says if I had a place here I'd like it. Perhaps so. You are very comfortably fixed, Miss Eschelle.”

“It does very well for us, but something more would be expected of Mr. Hollowell. We are just camping-out here. What Newport needs is a real palace, just to show those foreigners who come here and patronize us. Why is it, Mr. Hollowell, that all you millionaires can't think of anything better to do with your money than to put up a big hotel or a great elevator or a business block?”

“I suppose,” said Uncle Jerry, blandly, “that is because they are interested in the prosperity of the country, and have simple democratic tastes for themselves. I'm afraid you are not democratic, Miss Eschelle.”

“Oh, I'm anxious about the public also. I'm on your side, Mr. Hollowell; but you don't go far enough. You just throw in a college now and then to keep us quiet, but you owe it to the country to show the English that a democrat can have as fine a house as anybody.”

“I call that real patriotism. When I get rich, Miss Eschelle, I'll bear it in mind.”

“Oh, you never will be rich,” said Carmen, sweetly, bound to pursue her whim. “You might come to me for a start to begin the house. I was very lucky last spring in A. and B. bonds.”

“How was that? Are you interested in A. and B.?” asked Uncle Jerry, turning around with a lively interest in this gentle little woman.

“Oh, no; we sold out. We sold when we heard what an interest there was in the road. Mamma said it would never do for two capitalists to have their eggs in the same basket.”

“What do you mean, Carmen?” asked Margaret, startled. “Why, that is the road Mr. Henderson is in.”

“Yes, I know, dear. There were too many in it.”

“Isn't it safe?” said Margaret, turning to Hollowell.

“A great deal more solid than it was,” he replied. “It is part of a through line. I suppose Miss Eschelle found a better investment.”

“One nearer home,” she admitted, in the most matter-of-fact way.

“Henderson must have given the girl points,” thought Hollowell. He began to feel at home with her. If he had said the truth, it would have been that she was more his kind than Mrs. Henderson, but that he respected the latter more.

“I think we might go in partnership, Miss Eschelle, to mutual advantage—but not in building. Your ideas are too large for me there.”

“I should be a very unreliable partner, Mr. Hollowell; but I could enlarge your ideas, if I had time.”

Hollowell laughed, and said he hadn't a doubt of that. Margaret inquired for Mrs. Hollowell and the children, and she and Carmen appointed an hour for calling at the Ocean House. The talk went to other topics, and after a half-hour ended in mutual good-feeling.

“What a delightful old party!” said Carmen, after he had gone. “I've a mind to adopt him.”

In a week Hollowell and Carmen were the best of friends. She called him “Uncle Jerry,” and buzzed about him, to his great delight. “The beauty of it is,” he said, “you never can tell where she will light.”

Everybody knows what Newport is in August, and we need not dwell on it. To Margaret, with its languidly moving pleasures, its well-bred scenery, the luxury that lulled the senses into oblivion of the vulgar struggle and anxiety which ordinarily attend life, it was little less than paradise. To float along with Carmen, going deeper and deeper into the shifting gayety which made the days fly without thought and with no care for tomorrow, began to seem an admirable way of passing life. What could one do fitter, after all, for a world hopelessly full of suffering and poverty and discontent, than to set an example of cheerfulness and enjoyment, and to contribute, as occasion offered, to the less fortunate? Would it help matters to be personally anxious and miserable? To put a large bill in the plate on Sunday, to open her purse wide for the objects of charity and relief daily presented, was indeed a privilege and a pleasure, and a satisfaction to the conscience which occasionally tripped her in her rapid pace.

“I don't believe you have a bit of conscience,” said Margaret to Carmen one Sunday, as they walked home from morning service, when Margaret had responded “extravagantly,” as Carmen said, to an appeal for the mission among the city pagans.

“I never said I had, dear. It must be the most troublesome thing you can carry around with you. Of course I am interested in the heathen, but charity—that is where I agree with Uncle Jerry—begins at home, and I don't happen to know a greater heathen than I am.”

“If you were as bad as you make yourself out, I wouldn't walk with you another step.”

“Well, you ask mother. She was in such a rage one day when I told Mr. Lyon that he'd better look after Ireland than go pottering round among the neglected children. Not that I care anything about the Irish,” added this candid person.

“I suppose you wanted to make it pleasant for Mr. Lyon?”

“No; for mother. She can't get over the idea that she is still bringing me up. And Mr. Lyon! Goodness! there was no living with him after his visit to Brandon. Do you know, Margaret, that I think you are just a little bit sly?”

“I don't know what you mean,” said Margaret, looking offended.

“Dear, I don't blame you,” said the impulsive creature, wheeling short round and coming close to Margaret. “I'd kiss you this minute if we were not in the public road.”

When Henderson came, Margaret's world was full; no desire was ungratified. He experienced a little relief when she did not bother him about his business nor inquire into his operations with Hollowell, and he fancied that she was getting to accept the world as Carmen accepted it. There had been moments since his marriage when he feared that Margaret's scruples would interfere with his career, but never a moment when he had doubted that her love for him would be superior to any solicitations from others. Carmen, who knew him like a book, would have said that the model wife for Henderson would be a woman devoted to him and to his interests, and not too scrupulous. A wife is a torment, if you can't feel at ease with her.

“If there were only a French fleet in the harbor, dear,” said Margaret one day, “I should feel that I had quite taken up the life of my great-great-grandmother.”

They were sailing in Hollowell's yacht, in which Uncle Jerry had brought his family round from New York. He hated the water, but Mrs. Hollowell and the children doted on the sea, he said.

“Wouldn't the torpedo station make up for it?” Henderson asked.

“Hardly. But it shows the change of a hundred years. Only, isn't it odd, this personal dropping back into an old situation? I wonder what she was like?”

“The accounts say she was the belle of Newport. I suppose Newport has a belle once in a hundred years. The time has come round. But I confess I don't miss the French fleet,” replied Henderson, with a look of love that thrilled Margaret through and through.

“But you would have been an officer on the fleet, and I should have fallen in love with you. Ah, well, it is better as it is.”

And it was better. The days went by without a cloud. Even after Henderson had gone, the prosperity of life filled her heart more and more.

“She might have been like me,” Carmen said to herself, “if she had only started right; but it is so hard to get rid of a New England conscience.”

When Margaret stayed in her room, one morning, to write a long-postponed letter to her aunt, she discovered that she had very little to write, at least that she wanted to write, to her aunt. She began, however, resolutely with a little account of her life. But it seemed another thing on paper, addressed to the loving eyes at Brandon. There were too much luxury and idleness and triviality in it, too much Carmen and Count Crispo and flirtation and dissipation in it.

She tore it up, and went to the window and looked out upon the sea. She was indignant with the Brandon people that they should care so little about this charming life. She was indignant at herself that she had torn up the letter. What had she done that anybody should criticise her? Why shouldn't she live her life, and not be hampered everlastingly by comparisons?

She sat down again, and took up her pen. Was she changing—was she changed? Why was it that she had felt a little relief when her last Brandon visit was at an end, a certain freedom in Lenox and a greater freedom in Newport? The old associations became strong again in her mind, the life in the little neighborhood, the simplicity of it, the high ideals of it, the daily love and tenderness. Her aunt was no doubt wondering now that she did not write, and perhaps grieving that Margaret no more felt at home in Brandon. It was too much. She loved them, she loved them all dearly. She would write that, and speak only generally of her frivolous, happy summer. And she began, but somehow the letter seemed stiff and to lack the old confiding tone.

But why should they disapprove of her? She thought of her husband. If circumstances had altered, was she to blame? Could she always be thinking of what they would think at Brandon? It was an intolerable bondage. They had no right to set themselves up over her. Suppose her aunt didn't like Carmen. She was not responsible for Carmen. What would they have her do? Be unhappy because Henderson was prosperous, and she could indulge her tastes and not have to drudge in school? Suppose she did look at some things differently from what she used to. She knew more of the world. Must you shut yourself up because you found you couldn't trust everybody? What was Mr. Morgan always hitting at? Had he any better opinion of men and women than her husband had? Was he any more charitable than Uncle Jerry? She smiled as she thought of Uncle Jerry and his remark—“It's a very decent world if you don't huff it.” No; she did like this life, and she was not going to pretend that she didn't. It would be dreadful to lose the love and esteem of her dear old friends, and she cried a little as this possibility came over her. And then she hardened her heart a little at the thought that she could not help it if they chose to misunderstand her and change.

Carmen was calling from the stairs that it was time to dress for the drive. She dashed off a note. It contained messages of love for everybody, but it was the first one in her life written to her aunt not from her heart.