{0220}
The flavor of Old Virginia is unmistakable, and life drops into an easy-going pace under this influence. What fine manners, to be sure! The waiters in the dining-room, in white ties and dress-coats, move on springs, starting even to walk with a complicated use of all the muscles of the body, as if in response to the twang of a banjo; they do nothing without excessive motion and flourish. The gestures and good-humored vitality expended in changing plates would become the leader of an orchestra. Many of them, besides, have the expression of class-leaders—of a worldly sort. There were the aristocratic chambermaid and porter, who had the air of never having waited on any but the first families. And what clever flatterers and readers of human nature! They can tell in a moment whether a man will be complimented by the remark, “I tuk you for a Richmond gemman, never shod have know'd you was from de Norf,” or whether it is best to say, “We depen's on de gemmen frum de Norf; folks down hyer never gives noflin; is too pore.” But to a Richmond man it is always, “The Yankee is mighty keerful of his money; we depen's on the old sort, marse.” A fine specimen of the “Richmond darkey” of the old school-polite, flattering, with a venerable head of gray wool, was the bartender, who mixed his juleps with a flourish as if keeping time to music. “Haven't I waited on you befo', sah? At Capon Springs? Sorry, sah, but tho't I knowed you when you come in. Sorry, but glad to know you now, sah. If that julep don't suit you, sah, throw it in my face.”
{0221}
A friendly, restful, family sort of place, with music, a little mild dancing, mostly performed by children, in the pavilion, driving and riding-in short, peace in the midst of noble scenery. No display of fashion, the artist soon discovered, and he said he longed to give the pretty girls some instruction in the art of dress. Forbes was a missionary of “style.” It hurt his sense of the fitness of things to see women without it. He used to say that an ill-dressed woman would spoil the finest landscape. For such a man, with an artistic feeling so sensitive, the White Sulphur Springs is a natural goal. And he and his friend hastened thither with as much speed as the Virginia railways, whose time-tables are carefully adjusted to miss all connections, permit.
“What do you think of a place,” he wrote Miss Lamont—the girl read me a portion of his lively letter that summer at Saratoga—“into which you come by a belated train at half-past eleven at night, find friends waiting up for you in evening costume, are taken to a champagne supper at twelve, get to your quarters at one, and have your baggage delivered to you at two o'clock in the morning?” The friends were lodged in “Paradise Row”—a whimsical name given to one of the quarters assigned to single gentlemen. Put into these single-room barracks, which were neat but exceedingly primitive in their accommodations, by hilarious negro attendants who appeared to regard life as one prolonged lark, and who avowed that there was no time of day or night when a mint-julep or any other necessary of life would not be forthcoming at a moment's warning, the beginning of their sojourn at “The White” took on an air of adventure, and the two strangers had the impression of having dropped into a garrison somewhere on the frontier. But when King stepped out upon the gallery, in the fresh summer morning, the scene that met his eyes was one of such peaceful dignity, and so different from any in his experience, that he was aware that he had come upon an original development of watering-place life.
The White Sulphur has been for the better part of a century, as everybody knows, the typical Southern resort, the rendezvous of all that was most characteristic in the society of the whole South, the meeting-place of its politicians, the haunt of its belles, the arena of gayety, intrigue, and fashion. If tradition is to be believed, here in years gone by were concocted the measures that were subsequently deployed for the government of the country at Washington, here historic matches were made, here beauty had triumphs that were the talk of a generation, here hearts were broken at a ball and mended in Lovers' Walk, and here fortunes were nightly lost and won. It must have been in its material conditions a primitive place in the days of its greatest fame. Visitors came to it in their carriages and unwieldy four-horse chariots, attended by troops of servants, making slow but most enjoyable pilgrimages over the mountain roads, journeys that lasted a week or a fortnight, and were every day enlivened by jovial adventure. They came for the season. They were all of one social order, and needed no introduction; those from Virginia were all related to each other, and though life there was somewhat in the nature of a picnic, it had its very well-defined and ceremonious code of etiquette. In the memory of its old habitues it was at once the freest and the most aristocratic assembly in the world. The hotel was small and its arrangements primitive; a good many of the visitors had their own cottages, and the rows of these cheap structures took their names from their occupants. The Southern presidents, the senators, and statesmen, the rich planters, lived in cottages which still have an historic interest in their memory. But cottage life was never the exclusive affair that it is elsewhere; the society was one body, and the hotel was the centre.
Time has greatly changed the White Sulphur; doubtless in its physical aspect it never was so beautiful and attractive as it is today, but all the modern improvements have not destroyed the character of the resort, which possesses a great many of its primitive and old-time peculiarities. Briefly the White is an elevated and charming mountain region, so cool, in fact, especially at night, that the “season” is practically limited to July and August, although I am not sure but a quiet person, who likes invigorating air, and has no daughters to marry off, would find it equally attractive in September and October, when the autumn foliage is in its glory. In a green rolling interval, planted with noble trees and flanked by moderate hills, stands the vast white caravansary, having wide galleries and big pillars running round three sides. The front and two sides are elevated, the galleries being reached by flights of steps, and affording room underneath for the large billiard and bar-rooms. From the hotel the ground slopes down to the spring, which is surmounted by a round canopy on white columns, and below is an opening across the stream to the race-track, the servants' quarters, and a fine view of receding hills. Three sides of this charming park are enclosed by the cottages and cabins, which back against the hills, and are more or less embowered in trees. Most of these cottages are built in blocks and rows, some single rooms, others large enough to accommodate a family, but all reached by flights of steps, all with verandas, and most of them connected by galleries. Occasionally the forest trees have been left, and the galleries built around them. Included in the premises are two churches, a gambling-house, a couple of country stores, and a post-office. There are none of the shops common at watering-places for the sale of fancy articles, and, strange to say, flowers are not systematically cultivated, and very few are ever to be had. The hotel has a vast dining-room, besides the minor eating-rooms for children and nurses, a large ballroom, and a drawing-room of imposing dimensions. Hotel and cottages together, it is said, can lodge fifteen hundred guests.
The natural beauty of the place is very great, and fortunately there is not much smart and fantastic architecture to interfere with it. I cannot say whether the knowledge that Irene was in one of the cottages affected King's judgment, but that morning, when he strolled to the upper part of the grounds before breakfast, he thought he had never beheld a scene of more beauty and dignity, as he looked over the mass of hotel buildings, upon the park set with a wonderful variety of dark green foliage, upon the elevated rows of galleried cottages marked by colonial simplicity, and the soft contour of the hills, which satisfy the eye in their delicate blending of every shade of green and brown. And after an acquaintance of a couple of weeks the place seemed to him ravishingly beautiful.
King was always raving about the White Sulphur after he came North, and one never could tell how much his judgment was colored by his peculiar experiences there. It was my impression that if he had spent those two weeks on a barren rock in the ocean, with only one fair spirit for his minister, he would have sworn that it was the most lovely spot on the face of the earth. He always declared that it was the most friendly, cordial society at this resort in the country. At breakfast he knew scarcely any one in the vast dining-room, except the New Orleans and Richmond friends with whom he had a seat at table. But their acquaintance sufficed to establish his position. Before dinner-time he knew half a hundred; in the evening his introductions had run up into the hundreds, and he felt that he had potential friends in every Southern city; and before the week was over there was not one of the thousand guests he did not know or might not know. At his table he heard Irene spoken of and her beauty commented on. Two or three days had been enough to give her a reputation in a society that is exceedingly sensitive to beauty. The men were all ready to do her homage, and the women took her into favor as soon as they saw that Mr. Meigs, whose social position was perfectly well known, was of her party. The society of the White Sulphur seems perfectly easy of access, but the ineligible will find that it is able, like that of Washington, to protect itself. It was not without a little shock that King heard the good points, the style, the physical perfections, of Irene so fully commented on, and not without some alarm that he heard predicted for her a very successful career as a belle.
Coming out from breakfast, the Benson party were encountered on the gallery, and introductions followed. It was a trying five minutes for King, who felt as guilty, as if the White Sulphur were private property into which he had intruded without an invitation. There was in the civility of Mr. Meigs no sign of an invitation. Mrs. Benson said she was never so surprised in her life, and the surprise seemed not exactly an agreeable one, but Mr. Benson looked a great deal more pleased than astonished. The slight flush in Irene's face as she greeted him might have been wholly due to the unexpectedness of the meeting. Some of the gentlemen lounged off to the office region for politics and cigars, the elderly ladies took seats upon the gallery, and the rest of the party strolled down to the benches under the trees.
“So Miss Benson was expecting you!” said Mrs. Farquhar, who was walking with King. It is enough to mention Mrs. Farquhar's name to an habitue of the Springs. It is not so many years ago since she was a reigning belle, and as noted for her wit and sparkling raillery as for her beauty. She was still a very handsome woman, whose original cleverness had been cultivated by a considerable experience of social life in this country as well as in London and Paris.
“Was she? I'm sure I never told her I was coming here.”
“No, simple man. You were with her at Bar Harbor, and I suppose she never mentioned to you that she was coming here?”
“But why did you think she expected me?”
{0228}
“You men are too aggravatingly stupid. I never saw astonishment better feigned. I dare say it imposed upon that other admirer of hers also. Well, I like her, and I'm going to be good to her.” This meant a good deal. Mrs. Farquhar was related to everybody in Virginia—that is, everybody who was anybody before the war—and she could count at that moment seventy-five cousins, some of them first and some of them double-first cousins, at the White Sulphur. Mrs. Farquhar's remark meant that all these cousins and all their friends the South over would stand by Miss Benson socially from that moment.
The morning german had just begun in the ballroom. The gallery was thronged with spectators, clustering like bees about the large windows, and the notes of the band came floating out over the lawn, bringing to the groups there the lulling impression that life is all a summer holiday.
{0229}
“And they say she is from Ohio. It is right odd, isn't it? but two or three of the prettiest women here are from that State. There is Mrs. Martin, sweet as a jacqueminot. I'd introduce you if her husband were here. Ohio! Well, we get used to it. I should have known the father and mother were corn-fed. I suppose you prefer the corn-feds to the Confeds. But there's homespun and homespun. You see those under the trees yonder? Georgia homespun! Perhaps you don't see the difference. I do.”
“I suppose you mean provincial.”
“Oh, dear, no. I'm provincial. It is the most difficult thing to be in these leveling days. But I am not going to interest you in myself. I am too unselfish. Your Miss Benson is a fine girl, and it does not matter about her parents. Since you Yankees upset everything by the war, it is really of no importance who one's mother is. But, mind, this is not my opinion. I'm trying to adjust myself. You have no idea how reconstructed I am.”
And with this Mrs. Farquhar went over to Miss Benson, and chatted for a few moments, making herself particularly agreeable to Mr. Meigs, and actually carried that gentleman off to the spring, and then as an escort to her cottage, shaking her fan as she went away at Mr. King and Irene, and saying, “It is a waste of time for you youngsters not to be in the german.”
The german was just ended, and the participants were grouping themselves on the gallery to be photographed, the usual custom for perpetuating the memory of these exercises, which only take place every other morning. And since something must be done, as there are only six nights for dancing in the week, on the off mornings there are champagne and fruit parties on the lawn.
It was not about the german, however, that King was thinking. He was once more beside the woman he loved, and all the influences of summer and the very spirit of this resort were in his favor. If I cannot win her here, he was saying to himself, the Meigs is in it. They talked about the journey, about Luray, where she had been, and about the Bridge, and the abnormal gayety of the Springs.
“The people are all so friendly,” she said, “and strive so much to put the stranger at his ease, and putting themselves out lest time hang heavy on one's hands. They seem somehow responsible.”
“Yes,” said King, “the place is unique in that respect. I suppose it is partly owing to the concentration of the company in and around the hotel.”
“But the sole object appears to me to be agreeable, and make a real social life. At other like places nobody seems to care what becomes of anybody else.”
“Doubtless the cordiality and good feeling are spontaneous, though something is due to manner, and a habit of expressing the feeling that arises. Still, I do not expect to find any watering-place a paradise. This must be vastly different from any other if it is not full of cliques and gossip and envy underneath. But we do not go to a summer resort to philosophize. A market is a market, you know.”
“I don't know anything about markets, and this cordiality may all be on the surface, but it makes life very agreeable, and I wish our Northerners would catch the Southern habit of showing sympathy where it exists.”
“Well, I'm free to say that I like the place, and all its easy-going ways, and I have to thank you for a new experience.”
“Me? Why so?”
“Oh, I wouldn't have come if it had not been for your suggestion—I mean for your—your saying that you were coming here reminded me that it was a place I ought to see.”
“I'm glad to have served you as a guide-book.”
“And I hope you are not sorry that I—”
At this moment Mrs. Benson and Mr. Meigs came down with the announcement of the dinner hour, and the latter marched off with the ladies with a “one-of-the-family” air.
{0233}
The party did not meet again till evening in the great drawing-room. The business at the White Sulphur is pleasure. And this is about the order of proceedings: A few conscientious people take an early glass at the spring, and later patronize the baths, and there is a crowd at the post-office; a late breakfast; lounging and gossip on the galleries and in the parlor; politics and old-fogy talk in the reading-room and in the piazza corners; flirtation on the lawn; a german every other morning at eleven; wine-parties under the trees; morning calls at the cottages; servants running hither and thither with cooling drinks; the bar-room not absolutely deserted and cheerless at any hour, day or night; dinner from two to four; occasionally a riding-party; some driving; though there were charming drives in every direction, few private carriages, and no display of turn-outs; strolls in Lovers' Walk and in the pretty hill paths; supper at eight, and then the full-dress assembly in the drawing-room, and a “walk around” while the children have their hour in the ballroom; the nightly dance, witnessed by a crowd on the veranda, followed frequently by a private german and a supper given by some lover of his kind, lasting till all hours in the morning; and while the majority of the vast encampment reposes in slumber, some resolute spirits are fighting the tiger, and a light gleaming from one cottage and another shows where devotees of science are backing their opinion of the relative value of chance bits of pasteboard, in certain combinations, with a liberality and faith for which the world gives them no credit. And lest their life should become monotonous, the enterprising young men are continually organizing entertainments, mock races, comical games. The idea seems to prevail that a summer resort ought to be a place of enjoyment.
The White Sulphur is the only watering-place remaining in the United States where there is what may be called an “assembly,” such as might formerly be seen at Saratoga or at Ballston Spa in Irving's young days. Everybody is in the drawing-room in the evening, and although, in the freedom of the place, full dress is not exacted, the habit of parade in full toilet prevails. When King entered the room the scene might well be called brilliant, and even bewildering, so that in the maze of beauty and the babble of talk he was glad to obtain the services of Mrs. Farquhar as cicerone. Between the rim of people near the walls and the elliptical centre was an open space for promenading, and in this beauty and its attendant cavalier went round and round in unending show. This is called the “tread-mill.” But for the seriousness of this frank display, and the unflagging interest of the spectators, there would have been an element of high comedy in it. It was an education to join a wall group and hear the free and critical comments on the style, the dress, the physical perfection, of the charming procession. When Mrs. Farquhar and King had taken a turn or two, they stood on one side to enjoy the scene.
“Did you ever see so many pretty girls together before? If you did, don't you dare say so.”
“But at the North the pretty women are scattered in a thousand places. You have here the whole South to draw on. Are they elected as representatives from the various districts, Mrs. Farquhar?”
“Certainly. By an election that your clumsy device of the ballot is not equal to. Why shouldn't beauty have a reputation? You see that old lady in the corner? Well, forty years ago the Springs just raved over her; everybody in the South knew her; I suppose she had an average of seven proposals a week; the young men went wild about her, followed her, toasted her, and fought duels for her possession—you don't like duels?—why, she was engaged to three men at one time, and after all she went off with a worthless fellow.”
“That seems to me rather a melancholy history.”
“Well, she is a most charming old lady; just as entertaining! I must introduce you. But this is history. Now look! There's the belle of Mobile, that tall, stately brunette. And that superb figure, you wouldn't guess she is the belle of Selma. There is a fascinating girl. What a mixture of languor and vivacity! Creole, you know; full blood. She is the belle of New Orleans—or one of them. Oh! do you see that Paris dress? I must look at it again when it comes around; she carries it well, too—belle of Richmond. And, see there; there's one of the prettiest girls in the South—belle of Macon. And that handsome woman—Nashville?—Louisville? See, that's the new-comer from Ohio.” And so the procession went on, and the enumeration—belle of Montgomery, belle of Augusta, belle of Charleston, belle of Savannah, belle of Atlanta—always the belle of some place.
“No, I don't expect you to say that these are prettier than Northern women; but just between friends, Mr. King, don't you think the North might make a little more of their beautiful women? Yes, you are right; she is handsome” (King was bowing to Irene, who was on the arm of Mr. Meigs), “and has something besides beauty. I see what you mean” (King had not intimated that he meant anything), “but don't you dare to say it.”
“Oh, I'm quite subdued.”
“I wouldn't trust you. I suppose you Yankees cannot help your critical spirit.”
“Critical? Why, I've heard more criticism in the last half-hour from these spectators than in a year before. And—I wonder if you will let me say it?”
“Say on.”
“Seems to me that the chief topic here is physical beauty—about the shape, the style, the dress, of women, and whether this or that one is well made and handsome.”
“Well, suppose beauty is worshiped in the South—we worship what we have; we haven't much money now, you know. Would you mind my saying that Mr. Meigs is a very presentable man?”
“You may say what you like about Mr. Meigs.”
“That's the reason I took him away this morning.”
“Thank you.”
“He is full of information, and so unobtrusive—”
“I hadn't noticed that.”
{9237}
“And I think he ought to be encouraged. I'll tell you what you ought to do, Mr. King: you ought to give a german. If you do not, I shall put Mr. Meigs up to it—it is the thing to do here.”
“Mr. Meigs give a german!”—[Dance, cotillion—always lively. D.W.]
“Why not? You see that old beau there, the one smiling and bending towards her as he walks with the belle of Macon? He does not look any older than Mr. Meigs. He has been coming here for fifty years; he owns up to sixty-five and the Mexican war; it's my firm belief that he was out in 1812. Well, he has led the german here for years. You will find Colonel Fane in the ballroom every night. Yes, I shall speak to Mr. Meigs.”
The room was thinning out. King found himself in front of a row of dowagers, whose tongues were still going about the departing beauties. “No mercy there,” he heard a lady say to her companion; “that's a jury for conviction every time.” What confidential communication Mrs. Farquhar made to Mr. Meigs, King never knew, but he took advantage of the diversion in his favor to lead Miss Benson off to the ballroom.
The days went by at the White Sulphur on the wings of incessant gayety. Literally the nights were filled with music, and the only cares that infested the day appeared in the anxious faces of the mothers as the campaign became more intricate and uncertain. King watched this with the double interest of spectator and player. The artist threw himself into the melee with abandon, and pacified his conscience by an occasional letter to Miss Lamont, in which he confessed just as many of his conquests and defeats as he thought it would be good for her to know.
{0239}
The colored people, who are a conspicuous part of the establishment, are a source of never-failing interest and amusement. Every morning the mammies and nurses with their charges were seated in a long, shining row on a part of the veranda where there was most passing and repassing, holding a sort of baby show, the social consequence of each one depending upon the rank of the family who employed her, and the dress of the children in her charge. High-toned conversation on these topics occupied these dignified and faithful mammies, upon whom seemed to rest to a considerable extent the maintenance of the aristocratic social traditions. Forbes had heard that while the colored people of the South had suspended several of the ten commandments, the eighth was especially regarded as nonapplicable in the present state of society. But he was compelled to revise this opinion as to the White Sulphur. Nobody ever locked a door or closed a window. Cottages most remote were left for hours open and without guard, miscellaneous articles of the toilet were left about, trunks were not locked, waiters, chambermaids, porters, washerwomen, were constantly coming and going, having access to the rooms at all hours, and yet no guest ever lost so much as a hairpin or a cigar. This fashion of trust and of honesty so impressed the artist that he said he should make an attempt to have it introduced elsewhere. This sort of esprit de corps among the colored people was unexpected, and he wondered if they are not generally misunderstood by writers who attribute to them qualities of various kinds that they do not possess. The negro is not witty or consciously humorous, or epigrammatic. The humor of his actions and sayings lies very much in a certain primitive simplicity. Forbes couldn't tell, for instance, why he was amused at a remark he heard one morning in the store. A colored girl sauntered in, looking about vacantly. “You ain't got no cotton, is you?” “Why, of course we have cotton.” “Well” (the girl only wanted an excuse to say something), “I only ast, is you?”
{0241}
Sports of a colonial and old English flavor that have fallen into disuse elsewhere varied the life at the White. One day the gentlemen rode in a mule-race, the slowest mule to win, and this feat was followed by an exhibition of negro agility in climbing the greased pole and catching the greased pig; another day the cavaliers contended on the green field surrounded by a brilliant array of beauty and costume, as two Amazon baseball nines, the one nine arrayed in yellow cambric frocks and sun-bonnets, and the other in bright red gowns—the whiskers and big boots and trousers adding nothing whatever to the illusion of the female battle.
The two tables, King's and the Benson's, united in an expedition to the Old Sweet, a drive of eighteen miles. Mrs. Farquhar arranged the affair, and assigned the seats in the carriages. It is a very picturesque drive, as are all the drives in this region, and if King did not enjoy it, it was not because Mrs. Farquhar was not even more entertaining than usual. The truth is that a young man in love is poor company for himself and for everybody else. Even the object of his passion could not tolerate him unless she returned it. Irene and Mr. Meigs rode in the carriage in advance of his, and King thought the scenery about the tamest he had ever seen, the roads bad, the horses slow. His ill-humor, however, was concentrated on one spot; that was Mr. Meigs's back; he thought he had never seen a more disagreeable back, a more conceited back. It ought to have been a delightful day; in his imagination it was to be an eventful day. Indeed, why shouldn't the opportunity come at the Old Sweet, at the end of the drive?—there was something promising in the name. Mrs. Farquhar was in a mocking mood all the way. She liked to go to the Old Sweet, she said, because it was so intolerably dull; it was a sensation. She thought, too, that it might please Miss Benson, there was such a fitness in the thing—the old sweet to the Old Sweet. “And he is not so very old either,” she added; “just the age young girls like. I should think Miss Benson in danger—seriously, now—if she were three or four years younger.”
The Old Sweet is, in fact, a delightful old-fashioned resort, respectable and dull, with a pretty park, and a crystal pond that stimulates the bather like a glass of champagne, and perhaps has the property of restoring youth. King tried the spring, which he heard Mrs. Farquhar soberly commending to Mr. Meigs; and after dinner he manoeuvred for a half-hour alone with Irene. But the fates and the women were against him. He had the mortification to see her stroll away with Mr. Meigs to a distant part of the grounds, where they remained in confidential discourse until it was time to return.
In the rearrangement of seats Mrs. Farquhar exchanged with Irene. Mrs. Farquhar said that it was very much like going to a funeral each way. As for Irene, she was in high, even feverish spirits, and rattled away in a manner that convinced King that she was almost too happy to contain herself.
Notwithstanding the general chaff, the singing, and the gayety of Irene, the drive seemed to him intolerably long. At the half-way house, where in the moonlight the horses drank from a shallow stream, Mr. Meigs came forward to the carriage and inquired if Miss Benson was sufficiently protected against the chilliness of the night. King had an impulse to offer to change seats with him; but no, he would not surrender in the face of the enemy. It would be more dignified to quietly leave the Springs the next day.
It was late at night when the party returned. The carriage drove to the Benson cottage; King helped Irene to alight, coolly bade her good-night, and went to his barracks. But it was not a good night to sleep. He tossed about, he counted every step of the late night birds on his gallery; he got up and lighted a cigar, and tried dispassionately to think the matter over. But thinking was of no use. He took pen and paper; he would write a chill letter of farewell; he would write a manly avowal of his passion; he would make such an appeal that no woman could resist it. She must know, she did know—what was the use of writing? He sat staring at the blank prospect. Great heavens! what would become of his life if he lost the only woman in the world? Probably the world would go on much the same. Why, listen to it! The band was playing on the lawn at four o'clock in the morning. A party was breaking up after a night of german and a supper, and the revelers were dispersing. The lively tunes of “Dixie,” “Marching through Georgia,” and “Home, Sweet Home,” awoke the echoes in all the galleries and corridors, and filled the whole encampment with a sad gayety. Dawn was approaching. Good-nights and farewells and laughter were heard, and the voice of a wanderer explaining to the trees, with more or less broken melody, his fixed purpose not to go home till morning.
Stanhope King might have had a better though still a sleepless night if he had known that Mr. Meigs was packing his trunks at that hour to the tune of “Home, Sweet Home,” and if he had been aware of the scene at the Benson cottage after he bade Irene good-night. Mrs. Benson had a light burning, and the noise of the carriage awakened her. Irene entered the room, saw that her mother was awake, shut the door carefully, sat down on the foot of the bed, said, “It's all over, mother,” and burst into the tears of a long-repressed nervous excitement.
“What's over, child?” cried Mrs. Benson, sitting bolt-upright in bed.
“Mr. Meigs. I had to tell him that it couldn't be. And he is one of the best men I ever knew.”
“You don't tell me you've gone and refused him, Irene?”
“Please don't scold me. It was no use. He ought to have seen that I did not care for him, except as a friend. I'm so sorry!”
“You are the strangest girl I ever saw.” And Mrs. Benson dropped back on the pillow again, crying herself now, and muttering, “I'm sure I don't know what you do want.”
When King came out to breakfast he encountered Mr. Benson, who told him that their friend Mr. Meigs had gone off that morning—had a sudden business call to Boston. Mr. Benson did not seem to be depressed about it. Irene did not appear, and King idled away the hours with his equally industrious companion under the trees. There was no german that morning, and the hotel band was going through its repertoire for the benefit of a champagne party on the lawn. There was nothing melancholy about this party; and King couldn't help saying to Mrs. Farquhar that it hardly represented his idea of the destitution and depression resulting from the war; but she replied that they must do something to keep up their spirits.
“And I think,” said the artist, who had been watching, from the little distance at which they sat, the table of the revelers, “that they will succeed. Twenty-six bottles of champagne, and not many more guests! What a happy people, to be able to enjoy champagne before twelve o'clock!”
“Oh, you never will understand us!” said Mrs. Farquhar; “there is nothing spontaneous in you.”
“We do not begin to be spontaneous till after dinner,” said King.
“And then it is all calculated. Think of Mr. Forbes counting the bottles! Such a dreadfully mercenary spirit! Oh, I have been North. Because you are not so open as we are, you set up for being more virtuous.”
“And you mean,” said King, “that frankness and impulse cover a multitude of—”
“I don't mean anything of the sort. I just mean that conventionality isn't virtue. You yourself confessed that you like the Southern openness right much, and you like to come here, and you like the Southern people as they are at home.”
“Well?”
“And now will you tell me, Mr. Prim, why it is that almost all Northern people who come South to live become more Southern than the Southerners themselves; and that almost all Southern people who go North to live remain just as Southern as ever?”
“No. Nor do I understand any more than Dr. Johnson did why the Scotch, who couldn't scratch a living at home, and came up to London, always kept on bragging about their native land and abused the metropolis.”
This sort of sparring went on daily, with the result of increasing friendship between the representatives of the two geographical sections, and commonly ended with the declaration on Mrs. Farquhar's part that she should never know that King was not born in the South except for his accent; and on his part that if Mrs. Farquhar would conceal her delightful Virginia inflection she would pass everywhere at the North for a Northern woman.
“I hear,” she said, later, as they sat alone, “that Mr. Meigs has beat a retreat, saving nothing but his personal baggage. I think Miss Benson is a great goose. Such a chance for an establishment and a position! You didn't half appreciate him.”
“I'm afraid I did not.”
“Well, it is none of my business; but I hope you understand the responsibility of the situation. If you do not, I want to warn you about one thing: don't go strolling off before sunset in the Lovers' Walk. It is the most dangerous place. It is a fatal place. I suppose every turn in it, every tree that has a knoll at the foot where two persons can sit, has witnessed a tragedy, or, what is worse, a comedy. There are legends enough about it to fill a book. Maybe there is not a Southern woman living who has not been engaged there once at least. I'll tell you a little story for a warning. Some years ago there was a famous belle here who had the Springs at her feet, and half a dozen determined suitors. One of them, who had been unable to make the least impression on her heart, resolved to win her by a stratagem. Walking one evening on the hill with her, the two stopped just at a turn in the walk—I can show you the exact spot, with a chaperon—and he fell into earnest discourse with her. She was as cool and repellant as usual. Just then he heard a party approaching; his chance had come. The moment the party came in sight he suddenly kissed her. Everybody saw it. The witnesses discreetly turned back. The girl was indignant. But the deed was done. In half an hour the whole Springs would know it. She was compromised. No explanations could do away with the fact that she had been kissed in Lovers' Walk. But the girl was game, and that evening the engagement was announced in the drawing-room. Isn't that a pretty story?”
However much Stanhope might have been alarmed at this recital, he betrayed nothing of his fear that evening when, after walking to the spring with Irene, the two sauntered along and unconsciously, as it seemed, turned up the hill into that winding path which has been trodden by generations of lovers with loitering steps—steps easy to take and so hard to retrace! It is a delightful forest, the walk winding about on the edge of the hill, and giving charming prospects of intervales, stream, and mountains. To one in the mood for a quiet hour with nature, no scene could be more attractive.
The couple walked on, attempting little conversation, both apparently prepossessed and constrained. The sunset was spoken of, and when Irene at length suggested turning back, that was declared to be King's object in ascending the hill to a particular point; but whether either of them saw the sunset, or would have known it from a sunrise, I cannot say. The drive to the Old Sweet was pleasant. Yes, but rather tiresome. Mr. Meigs had gone away suddenly. Yes; Irene was sorry his business should have called him away. Was she very sorry? She wouldn't lie awake at night over it, but he was a good friend. The time passed very quickly here. Yes; one couldn't tell how it went; the days just melted away; the two weeks seemed like a day. They were going away the next day. King said he was going also.
“And,” he added, as if with an effort, “when the season is over, Miss Benson, I am going to settle down to work.”
“I'm glad of that,” she said, turning upon him a face glowing with approval.
“Yes, I have arranged to go on with practice in my uncle's office. I remember what you said about a dilettante life.”
“Why, I never said anything of the kind.”
“But you looked it. It is all the same.”
They had come to the crown of the hill, and stood looking over the intervales to the purple mountains. Irene was deeply occupied in tying up with grass a bunch of wild flowers. Suddenly he seized her hand.
“Irene!”
“No, no,” she cried, turning away. The flowers dropped from her hand.
“You must listen, Irene. I love you—I love you.”
She turned her face towards him; her lips trembled; her eyes were full of tears; there was a great look of wonder and tenderness in her face.
“Is it all true?”
{0251}
She was in his arms. He kissed her hair, her eyes—ah me! it is the old story. It had always been true. He loved her from the first, at Fortress Monroe, every minute since. And she—well, perhaps she could learn to love him in time, if he was very good; yes, maybe she had loved him a little at Fortress Monroe. How could he? what was there in her to attract him? What a wonder it was that she could tolerate him! What could she see in him?
So this impossible thing, this miracle, was explained? No, indeed! It had to be inquired into and explained over and over again, this absolutely new experience of two people loving each other.
She could speak now of herself, of her doubt that he could know his own heart and be stronger than the social traditions, and would not mind, as she thought he did at Newport—just a little bit—the opinions of other people. I do not by any means imply that she said all this bluntly, or that she took at all the tone of apology; but she contrived, as a woman can without saying much, to let him see why she had distrusted, not the sincerity, but the perseverance of his love. There would never be any more doubt now. What a wonder it all is.
The two parted—alas! alas! till supper-time!
I don't know why scoffers make so light of these partings—at the foot of the main stairs of the hotel gallery, just as Mrs. Farquhar was descending. Irene's face was radiant as she ran away from Mrs. Farquhar.
“Bless you, my children! I see my warning was in vain, Mr. King. It is a fatal walk. It always was in our family. Oh, youth! youth!” A shade of melancholy came over her charming face as she turned alone towards the spring.