From the LadyHelen Poleto the Countess ofEdgeandRoss.
From the LadyHelen Poleto the Countess ofEdgeandRoss.
Chipmunk Lake,August 4th
Dear Polly?
I HAVE solved the mystery of Mrs. Opp, and it has been the cause of much thought and speculation on my part. Her father was a German noble, high in favour of his Kaiser some fifty years ago. For some reason he fell from grace and was expatriated, his estates confiscated. He came to this country with a large family, drifted to one of the Northern counties of New York State and tried to make a living by farming. Of course he was a failure, poor man, but he was highly respected in the humble community, not only for his worthy character, but because he could read and write in seven languages. It was also known that he corresponded with Bismarck. Some twelve years after his arrival in the New World his youngest child was born—she who now is Mrs. Opp, wife of the keeper of Chipmunk Lake. By that time he was a common farmer and woodsman, working fourteen hours a day with his sons for a bare living,with neither the money nor the time to educate his superfluous children. The little girl grew up in the woods, turning her hand to everything, from milking to making syrup from the maple trees. When her father died and the farm was divided she “hired out,” and supported herself until she married, some ten years ago.
There you have the key to the mystery; the unconscious pride of carriage, the gracious manner, the well-kept teeth and nails, the more than suggestion of breeding in her face. But all this becomes strange only when you realize her absolute unselfconsciousness. I have talked with the woman over and over again and it is as plain as her descent that she has not the slightest appreciation of what she is and has been deprived of, much less cherishes any pride or vanity in it. It is all unconscious, this persistence of inherited instincts through the most unfavourable circumstances, with not an impulse in the brain to guide it. And how short it stops, this heredity! It goes so far and no farther; the brain, most important of all, is choked with the weeds of a bitter fate. Still, sheis happy—why should I pity her? She has her handsome woodsman, her placid mountain life, that eternalyoungnessin her face. Courts could give her nothing more; rather, would they give her too much.
But how it sets one to thinking, Polly. I have tried to imagine myself in similar circumstances: Dad exiled with a large brood, myself born on a mountain farm, “hired out”——The respectable amount of brain I had inherited from a long line of brilliant and useful men would be as surely mine as now—but with nothing put into it,couldit have been wholly ignorant and unambitious and unsuspecting?CouldI have cooked without protest for Mrs. Van Worden while her distinguished brother addressed me merely to demand more potatoes or the pepper?CouldI have been content with finger nails and teeth, and a backbone with a pride the brain had forgotten? Oh, no! I cannot imagine it. I should have demanded schooling, read my father’s correspondence with Bismarck, fed myself with his nightly tales of past splendour, and married an American of thehaute noblesse—in short, my hereditywould have worked itself out along the lines of the conventional novel, that is always so pleasantly prone to give you life as it should be, not as it is. Here I am face to face with a fact I never have met in fiction, and I am grateful for it—even while I feel sad as I speculate upon a fate I happily have escaped. The Fact is Mrs. Opp of noble blood and low degree, jolly, hearty, happy, unwarped by what she knows not of ungrammatical—and ambitious for a hotel on the St. Lawrence river. Surely, there is a motif for a novel of advanced realism.
I have talked it over with Mr. Nugent. He is so interesting and illuminating to talk anything over with. We take long walks and rows every day. He is my constant cavalier, for it would be really unprincipled of me to attempt to cut any of these women out, they have been so sweet to me. A party of us always start off together, but there are so many paths in the forest!
I cannot analyze for you, Polly, the stage at which I have arrived with Mr. Nugent. He has not actuallysaidanything, so far—he is tooclever—but he has a faculty of embracing me with an invisible presentment of himself, which is very disturbing. I don’t know what to think—except that I think a great deal about him. It is very sweet—but if only I could be sure. He is so different—everything over here is so different from anything I have ever known. (I don’t idealize him. I wonder if that is fatal?)
5th
We do not play intellectual games here, thank heaven, and there is no idol on a pedestal, nor one person who is more the fashion than another. We are frivolous usually, although I have occasionally heard some solid and instructive conversation, and we all read a good deal. Every house has several shelves of books, and the best literature of all countries except the Great Republic is well represented. Although I no longer take much interest in the subject—and indeed had observed long ago that the Americans of this class cared little for their own bookmakers—I asked Mrs. Van Worden the other day the causeof it. She often answers in sentences so short they sound like epigrams; however, brevity is the soul as well as the substance of most epigrams, as far as I am able to distinguish between the short sentences of the witty novelists and the paragraphs of those who think. For some reason the staccato movement supplies a meaning of which the words reck not.
Mrs. Van W. shrugged her flexible little shoulders when I called her attention to the fact that she had only three American novels in her bookcase.
“Why should I waste my little time on the obvious? I read what I do not know. I want knowledge. Not of a new dialect and pin point on a map, but of life, of the eternal mysteries. I want the wisdom of those who are not afraid to live and tell of what they have felt, thought, done. I am not satiated, not blasée. I am still full of hopes and dreams, and often I am quite happy; butIhave lived. Therefore I want to read books by people who have lived more. How could the surface—painted in water-colours by acautious hand—interestme. And the love scenes! Rotten. Conducted through a telephone. I want books written out of a brain and heart and soul crowded and vital with Life, spelled with a big L. I want poetry bursting with passion. I don’t care a hang for the ‘verbal felicities.’ They’ll do for the fringe, but I want the garment to warm me first. Good God! how little true poetry there is in our time; and I often feel the want of it so terribly. I know the old boys by heart. Oh, for a new Voice! What is the matter with the men, anyway? Women make asses of themselves when they try to be passionate and rhyme at the same time, but I can see no reason why a man should become so offensively ladylike the moment he becomes a poet.”
“These are busy times,” I suggested. “Perhaps the virile brains have found something better to do. A poet always has seemed to me a pretty poor apology for a man. Byron was masculine but he was the great exception. And his genius of personality was far greater than his poetical gift, great, creatively, as that was. Icould stand a man being a poet incidentally, if he had the power to make me forget he was a poet, but not otherwise.”
And then we all went out on the lake in the dusk and Mr. Nugent quoted Byron to me for an hour. Not to my back. He was rowing this time.
6th
About two miles from here is a lake entirely covered with water-lilies. It is seldom that a boat cuts the surface or a fish line is cast, for the water is too warm for trout, and our fishermen disdain bull heads and sunfish. Consequently the green lily pads have spread over every inch of it, and scattered upon them are the waxen cups with their golden treasure. It is a scene of indescribable beauty and peace, and the low hills above the shore, instead of the usual haughty mountains, are almost as sweet and wildly still.
The keeper carried a boat there yesterday, and Mr. N. rowed me about for an hour. I gathered an armful of the lilies and hung them all overmy hat and gown, linking the long soft stems in my belt until they trailed to my knees. I felt so happy in catching at the beautiful things as the boat grinded through their hidden part, and in adorning myself, that I quite forgot Mr. N., who had fallen silent. The silence of one of these Americans, by the way, is quite different from that of our men. They are at so much pains usually to entertain and interest a woman that their silences indicate either a pleasant intimacy, or depression, never a lordly superiority to small matters. Therefore, I suddenly paused with a cluster of lilies half raised and directed my glance to my companion. He looked neither musing nor sad. His eyes were fastened upon me with eager admiration, his whole face, that lean powerful nervous face stamped by unconquerable emotions, was so concentrated, that I felt myself blushing vividly, and I waved the cluster of lilies at arm’s-length.
“Did you ever see anything so beautiful?” I exclaimed gaily. “Is there any flower in the world so artistic as the water-lily?—from itspure cold form to its aloofness from the leaves?—and always alone, never a blossom and its buds, never a group, gathered as if in fragrant gossip. It is the nun among flowers, sexless, childless, angelically pure and cold, asking nothing of this life but to bloom white and unspotted in some mountain convent like this, a convent of perpetual silence, with its wall of hills, its roof of blue, embroidered with gold at night and haunted by day with fleecy clouds that look like wandering angels—Oh, dear! I forgot the thunder-storms and the cries of angry deer, but doubtless the lilies merely close up at such unholy sounds and pray in unruffled serenity.”
“Lady Helen, will you marry me?” asked Nugent.
Polly, I gave such a start that the boat rocked, and I felt like a silly girl who never had been proposed to before. Moreover, I blushed scarlet. But, although I had, over and over, imagined his proposal, none of my conceptions had been anything like this. I had pictured him losing his head suddenly when we were walking alonein the woods, or keeping guard over the fire in the living-room at night. I had—well, there is no use going into details of what did not happen. Suffice it to say that the proposal was delivered in tersest English under a four o’clock sun, while he had an oar in each hand. And as I could not run away, and as he gave me not the slightest excuse to be angry there was nothing to do but to give him some sort of reply.
“To be perfectly honest, I don’t know,” I said.
“You mean that you are not sure that you love me, but that I may hope,” and his face turned as crimson as mine—no easy feat, for it is about the colour and consistency of leather.
“It is the sort of thing you can put in a good many different ways. And there is so much to be considered. You have the double magnetism of mind and sex, you always interest and never bore me, and you are entirely different from any one I have ever known. I am twenty-six, and like all women, eager to be in love—that I never have been makes my longing for that particularheritage the keener. Moreover, I am on the rebound from two years of cruel anxiety, days and nights of tears and waiting. For the first time I feel that I belong to myself once more, that the world and all its delights are mine—and you happen to be the only man. How it would be if I had met you in England in every-day conditions—that is the problem I cannot solve. These wild mountains, this life full of novelty, the novelty of everything—Oh, I don’t know.”
“Have you any prejudice against marrying an American?”
“No prejudice. That is not the word. It is—well, the very novelty that draws me to you is what I am most afraid of. You see—as I said—I never met any one in the least like you before. The men I have known, whether Englishmen or Europeans, are all men born of the same traditions as myself. Fundamentally they are the same, no matter what their individualities. But you—you are just as different fundamentally as every other way. How do I know but that your great attraction for me is partly the spell of yourfascination, more still the novelty which appeals to my somewhat various mind?”
“You certainly have given the matter some thought,” he said, smiling with a sort of joyous sarcasm, but in his usual harsh abrupt tones. “I’ll debate the matter if you like. Your uncertainty of mind is due to the fact that you have gone fancy-free to the age of twenty-six. Unless a woman early acquires the habit of falling in love, it becomes more difficult every year—the disassociating of the mind from the emotions—the surrender of self—you struck me when I first saw you as being so implacably proud in your absolute self-ownership—it was delicious—I knew you never had kissed any man—when will you give me your answer?”
“When? Oh! Well—before—” brightening—“when Bertie is quite well.”
“Your brother is as good as well now. Soulé says there isn’t a microbe in him. The Adirondacks and common sense are all he wants. He has acquired both. Can you assert that you know it would be utterly impossible to love me?”
“Oh, no, I can’t say that.”
“Then take the plunge. I will answer for the rest. You won’t love me before you marry me. I feel sure of that. I am equally sure that you will love me after. And all the differences from your traditional man—they will transpose themselves into commonplaces when they have become the familiar details of daily life.”
“But English women never marry American men,” I exclaimed, grasping wildly at a straw. “It always is the other way.”
“There lies your chance for fame,” he said more lightly than one would expect from his face. “You are already the most delightfully original of women. Don’t do anything so commonplace as to go home, after having all your blood made over by the Adirondack air, and marry a great landlord with a rent-roll and six titles. Fancy the stimulation of watching a determined American throttling a fortune out of his chaotic country, helping him in his ambitious career, rising with him step by step until he is head and shoulders above the seventy strugglingmillions of the United States of America. Does not the prospect please you? You see I am practical. I hate self-control. I know very little about it. But I dare not be lover-like, not the least bit, till you give me permission.”
“Oh, please don’t! Yes, the lifewouldbe interesting. But I adore politics. Would you throw over that Trust and go in heart and soul for reform, with the ultimate intention of being a distinguished statesman?”
“Yes—but it would mean a curtailed income.”
“I have quantities of money—itwouldbe rather an original international match, wouldn’t it?”
“It certainly would. And while you could expend your entire income on dress and jewels if you chose, you would have to make up your mind to live according tomyincome.”
“Oh!”
“Ishouldbe a failure if I settled down to live on a woman’s money at my age—forty-one—; moreover my divorce from the interests of capitalism would be deprived of its point. It would bethe sacrifice that would tell most in the beginning. No native of the British Isles would be accused of the disinterestedness of marrying an unwealthy American when protected by a rent-roll. Nobody would suspect your income.”
“That is a nice polite thing to say to me! How would you like the idea of people saying I married you to be supported—with the inference that no one in England would have me?”
“I do not care a red cent what any one says or thinks if I get you. That is the only thing in life that interests me at present.”
“Bertie might oppose it so violently that he would have another hemorrhage.”
“If he were convinced that you loved me and if you wept a few judicious tears, common gratitude would force him to consent without a hemorrhage—and if you postponed the announcement a month he couldn’t have another if he tried. Besides, he loves you devotedly—you know his opposition would soon be exhausted. I have seldom seen a brother and sister so united. He would end by feeling with you and makingvivid mental pictures of your great desire for happiness—if I could only create that desire in you.”
“Oh, dear!” I said. “You must give me time. Ican’tsay anything definite for days and days.Pleasetalk of something else.”
“I have no intention of worrying you. Let us land here. I have another lake to show you. If this is a cloister, rapt and holy, that is a refuge for lost souls, dank and sinister.”
Much interested, and delighted at his ready conformity to my wishes, I stepped ashore and followed him along a “runway” (deer run), for about a mile. It turned and twisted through the wood and sometimes we had to climb over fallen trees, not having the lightsome feet of the deer—who could leap a house, I should think. It was not a dense wood, and the sunlight fairly tumbled in, but so divided that it seemed palpable enough to catch by the apronful. Some of the leaves looked to be made of light, and a sea-gull—they nest in these forests—seemed swimming and drinking in an upper lake of sunshine. But, abruptly,this charming impression was behind us. The wood grew dark and I noticed that the ground was very springy and soft—as our moors are in places.
“We are on a swamp—made of the decay of trees for a hundred years—” he said—“but you are quite safe. It is at least five feet deep.”
This was sufficiently creepy—only five feet of rotted bark and leaves between ourselves and the lake—although I reflected that if it could support trees, our additional weight would not sink it—but in a moment we stood on the brink of the lake.
Polly, I never have seen so desolate a spot. Even the mountains had deserted it. The forest about it grew on land as flat as a plain, and the trees hid the peaks which were only a few miles distant. And so many of the trees were dead. Lightning had blasted them and scarcely a spruce had escaped the blight. All about the shore the lake was choked with rotting trunks, their naked branches projecting starkly above the water—which had no movement. Its tarnished surface, as ripless as a marsh, did not even reflect thatdeserted wood—they held themselves aloof from each other; and yet they seemed dying together. The lake has no inlet, Mr. N. had told me as we came along; it is fed by springs and the moisture of the forest. I could imagine it dropping lower and lower, as the trees about it died, until—a century hence?—a dry bed choked with rotting trees would be visited as the tomb of one of Nature’s failures. In England such a spot would be the headquarters of a dozen dark and terrible stories, and would have done threadbare duty in fiction. But old as it is it is still too young for that complicated thing called life to have centred about it. It is on one of the New World’s peaks, and not in another generation will she have time to discover it. It is like those unhappy mortals who die and rot before they have guessed that there is aught in the world to live for. Poor stranded ugly duckling. I felt more pity for it than terror and almost resented the calm insolence of its beautiful fellows—two thousand of them, I am told. I wondered if its hidden springs met and gossipped with other springs, who inturn poured their cold freshness into other lakes, and with it their tale of a comrade forgotten by Nature and despised by man. Doubtless they would deepen their amber-brown in scorn, those spoilt beauties of the mountains, worshipped of men and darlings of Nature; not a ripple of pity would agitate them, I would vow.
“Look,” said Mr. N.
He pushed his feet hard against the swamp, putting much spring into his body—and for a hundred yards the shore trembled, the trees moved as if on a seesaw. My nerves are strong, but that was too much. I grasped his arm.
“Come!” I said, “Take me away—please. And do you go ahead. I want to look at a living being till I get out of this wood.”
And we went back to the lake of the water-lilies, that looked pure, and sweet, and happy enough to pray for their lost neighbour.
7th
This morning I sat watching the sunlight play on the wrinkles of the lake where a light breezeblew. The glittering sun-flecks looked exactly like a flock of tiny silver birds caught fast on the surface of the lake and straining their wings even to run away. Everyday I find something new in this lake to interest me, and early this morning, being unable to sleep, I rose and looked out of my front window and saw a great deer, with his antlers against the rosy dawn, standing on one of the points of The Narrows. For a few moments he listened intently, then waded out among the lily pads and had his morning repast.
Perhaps you can imagine why I slept so ill last night. Polly, I wish I knew my own mind. I am afraid of making a mistake and afraid of throwing away what may be my one supreme opportunity to love. If I were only an American or he an Englishman. If only I had the intuitive knowledge of him and all that he will mean. I am beginning to suspect that I have something of the pioneer, of the discoverer in me. After all, why should not one make great experiments in life? Obedience to traditions, to habit, we see every day—and how much happiness?
But I think I’ll be glad to get away from the subject for a time.
I am rather keen for the autumn to come—“the fall of the year”—when all these mountains are a blaze of red and gold and the lakes reflect their glory; when the dew freezes on these forest flames and turns them to jewels that outdazzle the stars; when the hunters with their red caps are in them, not stalking the nimble deer, but sitting beside the runways hour after hour, patiently waiting the passing of the only lords left in these forests, when we have venison three times a day and wonder why we pined for it. There! that was as malicious a drop as any of Heine’s, and I am sorry.
I saw such a laughable sight two days ago. Mr. N. took me to the cow-yard to see it. Know first that the deer flies are a pest in the land and the terror of beasts. The solitary cow the colony boasts was taking her afternoon nap, down on her folded legs. Close to her head and perched along her back were a half dozen hens with their heads alert, watching the circling flies. The moment one lit, the nearest chicken pounced and the fly disappeared,never to torment cow or deer again. I saw ten disposed of in this way, while the cow slumbered peacefully, secure in her guard.
Have I told you that there is a deep ravine on one side of the house? The veranda overhangs it and I often stand and stare down into that wild tangle of fallen trees and rocks and ferns. The sides are broken and steep and under the shade of many trees, straggling up into complete darkness. The torrent is almost dry, but in winter and spring it is broad and noisy and all the ferns are covered and show green and lace-like under the water. It is the outlet of the lake and it goes far down into the valley where it tumbles over a fall into another and wider stream. Up this rocky steep mountain brook, over the cascade, the trout climb in their thirst for the cold springs of the higher lakes. No other fish can make that perilous journey, so Chipmunk is one of the stars of the Adirondacks. The trout have no minnows or other small fish to feed on, and rise to the fly with little coaxing. I am become so learned in mountain lore! But I feel as if I had discoveredthis wonderful country, and as happy as a poet in the nervous languor of creation.
You remember I wrote you of Mrs. Coward—and, by the way she says she met you at Homburg and in Scotland two years ago—I have concluded that I do not like her quite as well as the others, not because she is insatiable in her desire for admiration and has several times flattered Mr. N. right out of the room and on to the lake—how can men be so weak?—when he is palpably devoted to me and therefore in common decency she should let him alone. Unless she mends her ways I shall turn my batteries on Mr. Carlisle, a dashing young millionaire who distinguished himself in the late war, is a master of hounds, drives a Tally-ho, is a champion at golf, never misses the two deer a season the government permits him to shoot, and is altogether very jolly and charming. I could cut her out if I chose and without flattering the animal either. That is a trick of the mind to cover up the defects of nature.
But what I started to say was that the real reason I dislike her is that I have discovered moreof the snob in her than in most of these Americans, aspiring as they are—with the possible exception of Mrs. Laurence. Yesterday morning I “dropped” into Mrs. Grant’s lodge, and while the servant went for Mrs. Coward—Mrs. Grant had a headache—I picked up a framed photograph of a very good-looking young man in the uniform of the United States. I still held it when Mrs. Coward came stepping down the stairs like the duchess in the play, a red poppy in her dark hair, a soft cream-white morning gown clinging to herself and the floor—the morning was chilly. She had a bunch of poppies in her belt and altogether looked rather well.
“Is this your brother?” I asked. “I fancy I see a resemblance.”
“Yes,” she replied, “it is my soldier-brother. He made a brilliant charge at Santiago and I am very proud of him. Sit there, dear Lady Helen, where the light falls full on you. You are so radiant, bathed in sunlight—and you can stand it. I always feel in the presence of poetry—a blue and gold edition of all the poets—when I can sitand look at you like this. Poetry is really elevating, don’t you think so?—I always maintain that, positively. It is like pure air and the rural beauties of the country. But about my brave brother: it is only fondness that makes me proud of him, for there never has been a generation in our family where we have not given at least one soldier to the country. Of course you will appreciate that. Very few American families can say that forseven generationsits men have distinguished themselves in the field and added to the honour of the name.”
Her low silken shallow voice paused that I might comment, but I only stared at the portrait—now restored to the table—trying in vain to frame a phrase that would express my awe of the seven generations. Finally, I said desperately:
“He looks—really—as if the entire Spanish army could not terrify him.”
This extravagance served the purpose of diversion. “Nothing could terrify him,” she exclaimed. “He only needs another war to become really famous. I am quite positive our unfortunate acquisitionswill let us in for another war before long—the Chinese question—don’t you think so? I think it so delightful that American women are now beginning to take as much interest in politics as English women do. You really have been our superiors in that—as in many other—respects. I heard you discussing the great questions of the day with Mr. Nugent and Mr. Carlisle last night and I quite envied you—I am just beginning, and you seem to have learned politics with your alphabet. I amsoglad you have such influence with Mr. Nugent, because I am convinced that he has the making of a statesman in him and that it is his duty to go into high politics. I have always maintained,” she added weightily, “that it is a man’s duty to cultivate his gifts. If he feels an irresistible impulse to write he should do so—or to paint—or to model. Politics are of equal importance to the development of civilisation—the right sort. Do not you agree with me, Lady Helen?”
“I have always maintained that white is white, and that the sun gives light when there are nottoo many clouds,” I said, firmly. “How wonderfully becoming those poppies are to you. I envy any one who can wear red, it is a colour so full of life, but it does not suit me at all.”
For a second she had looked puzzled, but she is too thorough a woman of the world to hang out her emotions, and she replied with her usual suavity:
“If I could wear pink and dead white, and brilliant blues as you can I should resign red without a struggle. I haveneverseen anything so beautiful as you are with a pink rose in your hair and another at your throat.”
But I had had as much of this as I could stand and I asked her abruptly if she had visited many of the lakes.
“This is my first visit to the Adirondacks, I am ashamed to say. I was taken abroad every summer when I was a girl and I have gone almost every year since from force of habit and because I really have such a delicious time. It is one’s duty to see all the beauties of the old world, don’t you think so, Lady Helen?”
But I did not want to talk about Europe. “I hear that Spruce Lake is so beautiful,” I said. “Could not we—a party of us—walk over there some day? It is only seven miles, and Mr. Nugent says the trail is very good.”
“Seven miles!DearLady Helen. Twice seven are fourteen. Remember—we—alas!—are not English.”
“They might put us up for the night——”
“Oh, quite impossible. We do not know any of them. They are business people from Buffalo and Utica and all those provincial towns.”
“In trade, do you mean?”
“That is the way you would express it. It is the same class—people who keep stores or make things.”
“And they have the same tastes as yourself?” I asked, puzzled at this new American facer. “They are—sportsmen? They lead the same life up here as you do?”
“I really don’t know anything about them. I suppose there are certain national characteristics; several lakes in the Adirondacks are owned bypeople of that sort. I am told that there was an encampment of commercial travellers just off the borders of this property last year.”
“But I don’t understand. Your lines of caste are very marked, it has seemed to me. Why should the leisure class and the commercial traveller have the same tastes. It is very odd.”
But she refused to take the slightest interest in the subject, and that afternoon as I was walking to the lake of the water-lilies with Mr. N. I asked him for enlightenment.
“Oh, Eastern men are keen sportsmen,” he said. “That is to say, most—wherever there are mountains and woods and lakes. It is an instinct inherited from the old hunters and trappers—from the days when the settlers shot game for food and were as familiar with the wilderness as the farm. These settlers were the ancestors of men who are in all classes of life to-day. And you must remember that there is no ‘Continent’ to run over to for the yearly vacation. You can travel an immense distance here and pay a good deal of money only to hear a change of accent. But the forests ofNew York and Maine mean rest, reinvigoration, and the complete happiness of the sportsman. These men up here go in the woods every year as naturally as they keep their nose to the grindstone for the remaining ten or eleven months.
“And they are first-class sportsmen.”
“As good as any in England.”
“Men that—that—sell hats?”
“Carlisle is neither keener nor better.”
“Certainly your country is wonderfully interesting and sometimes I feel as if I were groping about in the neighbourhood of the true democracy. Do they also play golf?”
“They do, indeed.”
“The tradesmen? People who keep retail shops.”
“In the small interior towns many of them have achieved sufficient prosperity and leisure, and they are very keen about it. But in the large towns it is usually the wealthier class that goes in for it; the families of business and professional men, successful on a large scale.”
And then I saw the lilies.
I must tell you that Mrs. Van Worden often goes into the kitchen and sits in a rocking chair by the window and talks to Mrs. Opp, and that sometimes, when the men are out, she invites her into the living-room. It appears that unless these people were treated with a certain amount of consideration they would not remain. A city servant is a servant, but in the country they appear to have studied the Declaration of Independence, and doubtless they all know that Abraham Lincoln’s sister “lived out.” Mrs. Opp is quite insensible of her noble blood but she is as proud as Lucifer all the same, and because her untainted Americanism teaches her that she is “as good as anybody.” She is willing to work for hire and envies no one, but the slightest display of “airs,” an unthinking snub, and she would pack her bundle and march over the mountain with a majesty the self-conscious American of high degree never will achieve. It is truly delightful and I love her. I often go out and sit in the rocker and watch her great bulk move lightly about the exquisite kitchen, and listen to her kindly drawlemphasised by little gracious bends of the head. She tells me the gossip of the mountains, and alluded the other day to the cook at Boulder Lake as “a lovely woman.” I told her about Jemima, and she said:
“Poor child. I guess she was right, but she didn’t know how to take it. Of course you folks nat’rally wants ter eat with yourselves, and the hired help as is used to farms and little country towns don’t just see how it is at first. Different people has different ways and all we ask up here is to be treated right, we don’t expect the hull earth. I’ve always knowed that, because I’ve lived so much to hotels, but Jemima, I guess she’s pretty green yet.”
When I told her about Jemima wanting to see “a dook,” she laughed heartily.
“Well, I guess I’d like to see one, myself,” she admitted, “not that I’d expect them to be so different from other folks, but just because I’ve read so much about ’em. That’s it. That’s it. I’m glad he’s gittin’ on so nice. He had orter drink plenty of milk.”
Curiously enough, that evening I received a letter from Bertie saying that another “eminent doctor” had put him on a milk diet and promised him complete health inoneyear if he would be faithful to it and the Adirondacks for that period.
“Its beastly uninteresting diet, Nell, and required all the will I’ve got to make up my mind to it,” he wrote; “but I want to get back to England and be alive once more, so I’ve plunged in—literally enough. I’ve leased an Inn on one of the big public lakes from October till June, so we’ll have a big old-fashioned house, they tell me, and not a care, for the proprietor will ‘run it.’ Rogers has promised to come up twice a month and I have written to Nugent and asked him to come often and bring all the friends he likes. I fancy from your letters that I should like the men—and women—over there better than these—Rogers excepted. I believe he is in love with you, Nell, and so is Nugent; but you mustn’t marry an American. By the way Roddy Spencer is coming over here—wrote me to expect him any day, and that he’d look me up at once. Hehas just succeeded—old Landsburghe died last month, and left Roddy all his personal property. That must amount to three or four hundred thousand and with the estates will set up Roddy as well as he could wish—and his debts must have been a pretty penny.”
I shall be rather glad to see Roddy. He was always with Bertie when they were boys, but I have not seen much of him of late years. Didn’t he go to South Africa in the hope that Rhodes would put him in the way of making a fortune—after he had loaded himself too heavily with debts to remain in London. I forget the details. The legacy must have been a pleasant surprise, for the old Marquis was very eccentric and had refused to pay his debts. Well, I shall be glad to see him and suppose he is as good looking as ever.
Helen.