The other side of the piazza was, as Lord Lambeth presently remarked, a very jolly place. It was of the most liberal proportions, and with its awnings, its fanciful chairs, its cushions and rugs, its view of the ocean, close at hand, tumbling along the base of the low cliffs whose level tops intervened in lawnlike smoothness, it formed a charming complement to the drawing-room. As such it was in course of use at the present moment; it was occupied by a social circle. There were several ladies and two or three gentlemen, to whom Mrs Westgate proceeded to introduce the distinguished strangers. She mentioned a great many names, very freely and distinctly: the young Englishmen, shuffling about and bowing, were rather bewildered. But at last they were provided with chairs – low wicker chairs, gilded and tied with a great many ribbons – and one of the ladies (a very young person, with a little snub nose and several dimples) offered Percy Beaumont a fan. The fan was also adorned with pink love-knots; but Percy Beaumont declined it, although he was very hot. Presently, however, it became cooler; the breeze from the sea was delicious, the view was charming, and the people sitting there looked exceedingly fresh and comfortable. Several of the ladies seemed to be young girls, and the gentlemen were slim, fair youths, such as our friends had seen the day before in New York. The ladies were working upon bands of tapestry, and one of the young men had an open book in his lap. Beaumont afterwards learned from one of the ladies that this young man had been reading aloud – that he was from Boston and was very fond of reading aloud. Beaumont said it was a great pity that they had interrupted him; he should like so much (from all he had heard) to hear a Bostonian read. Couldn’t the young man be induced to go on?
‘Oh no,’ said his informant, very freely; ‘he wouldn’t be able to get the young ladies to attend to him now.’
There was something very friendly, Beaumont perceived, in the attitude of the company; they looked at the young Englishmen with an air of animated sympathy and interest; they smiled, brightly and unanimously, at everything either of the visitors said. Lord Lambeth and his companion felt that they were being made very welcome. Mrs Westgate seated herself between them, and, talking a great deal to each, they had occasion to observe that she was as pretty as their friend Littledale had promised. She was thirty years old, with the eyes and the smile of a girl of seventeen, and she was extremely light and graceful, elegant, exquisite. Mrs Westgate was extremely spontaneous. She was very frank and demonstrative, and appeared always – while she looked at you delightedly with her beautiful young eyes – to be making sudden confessions and concessions, after momentary hesitations.
‘We shall expect to see a great deal of you,’ she said to Lord Lambeth, with a kind of joyous earnestness. ‘We are very fond of Englishmen here; that is, there are a great many we have been fond of. After a day or two you must come and stay with us; we hope you will stay a long time. Newport’s a very nice place when you come really to know it, when you know plenty of people. Of course, you and Mr Beaumont will have no difficulty about that. Englishmen are very well received here; there are almost always two or three of them about. I think they always like it, and I must say I should think they would. They receive ever so much attention. I must say I think they sometimes get spoiled; but I am sure you and Mr Beaumont are proof against that. My husband tells me you are a friend of Captain Littledale; he was such a charming man. He made himself most agreeable here, and I am sure I wonder he didn’t stay. It couldn’t have been pleasanter for him in his own country. Though I suppose it is very pleasant in England, for English people. I don’t know myself; I have been there very little. I have been a great deal abroad, but I am always on the Continent. I must say I’m extremely fond of Paris; you know we Americans always are; we go there when we die. Did you ever hear that before? that was said by a great wit. I mean the good Americans; but we are all good; you’ll see that for yourself. All I know of England is London, and all I know of London is that place – on that little corner, you know, where you buy jackets – jackets with that coarse braid and those big buttons. They make very good jackets in London, I will do you the justice to say that. And some people like the hats; but about the hats I was always a heretic; I always got my hats in Paris. You can’t wear an English hat – at least, I never could – unless you dress your hair à l’Anglaise; and I must say that is a talent I never possessed. In Paris they will make things to suit your peculiarities; but in England I think you like much more to have – how shall I say it? – one thing for everybody. I mean as regards dress. I don’t know about other things; but I have always supposed that in other things everything was different. I mean according to the people – according to the classes, and all that. I am afraid you will think that I don’t take a very favourable view; but you know you can’t take a very favourable view in Dover Street, in the month of November. That has always been my fate. Do you know Jones’s Hotel, in Dover Street? That’s all I know of England. Of course, every one admits that the English hotels are your weak point. There was always the most frightful fog; I couldn’t see to try my things on. When I got over to America – into the light – I usually found they were twice too big. The next time I mean to go in the season; I think I shall go next year. I want very much to take my sister; she has never been to England. I don’t know whether you know what I mean by saying that the Englishmen who come here sometimes get spoiled. I mean that they take things as a matter of course – things that are done for them. Now, naturally, they are only a matter of course when the Englishmen are very nice. But, of course, they are almost always very nice. Of course, this isn’t nearly such an interesting country as England; there are not nearly so many things to see, and we haven’t your country life. I have never seen anything of your country life; when I am in Europe I am always on the Continent. But I have heard a great deal about it; I know that when you are among yourselves in the country you have the most beautiful time. Of course, we have nothing of that sort, we have nothing on that scale. I don’t apologise, Lord Lambeth; some Americans are always apologising; you must have noticed that. We have the reputation of always boasting and bragging and waving the American flag; but I must say that what strikes me is that we are perpetually making excuses and trying to smooth things over. The American flag has quite gone out of fashion; it’s very carefully folded up, like an old table-cloth. Why should we apologise? The English never apologise – do they? No, I must say I never apologise. You must take us as we come – with all our imperfections on our heads. Of course we haven’t your country life, and your old ruins, and your great estates, and your leisure-class, and all that. But if we haven’t, I should think you might find it a pleasant change – I think any country is pleasant where they have pleasant manners. Captain Littledale told me he had never seen such pleasant manners as at Newport; and he had been a great deal in European society. Hadn’t he been in the diplomatic service? He told me the dream of his life was to get appointed to a diplomatic post in Washington. But he doesn’t seem to have succeeded. I suppose that in England promotion – and all that sort of thing – is fearfully slow. With us, you know, it’s a great deal too fast. You see I admit our drawbacks. But I must confess I think Newport is an ideal place. I don’t know anything like it anywhere. Captain Littledale told me he didn’t know anything like it anywhere. It’s entirely different from most watering-places; it’s a most charming life. I must say I think that when one goes to a foreign country, one ought to enjoy the differences. Of course there are differences; otherwise what did one come abroad for? Look for your pleasure in the differences, Lord Lambeth; that’s the way to do it; and then I am sure you will find American society – at least Newport society – most charming and most interesting. I wish very much my husband were here; but he’s dreadfully confined to New York. I suppose you think that’s very strange – for a gentleman. Only you see we haven’t any leisure-class.’
Mrs Westgate’s discourse, delivered in a soft, sweet voice, flowed on like a miniature torrent and was interrupted by a hundred little smiles, glances and gesture
s, which might have figured the irregularities and obstructions of such a stream. Lord Lambeth listened to her with, it must be confessed, a rather ineffectual attention, although he indulged in a good many little murmurs and ejaculations of assent and deprecation. He had no great faculty for apprehending generalisations. There were some three or four indeed which, in the play of his own intelligence, he had originated, and which had seemed convenient at the moment; but at the present time he could hardly have been said to follow Mrs Westgate as she darted gracefully about in the sea of speculation. Fortunately she asked for no especial rejoinder, for she looked about at the rest of the company as well, and smiled at Percy Beaumont, on the other side of her, as if he too must understand her and agree with her. He was rather more successful than his companion; for besides being, as we know, cleverer, his attention was not vaguely distracted by close vicinity to a remarkably interesting young girl, with dark hair and blue eyes. This was the case with Lord Lambeth, to whom it occurred after a while that the young girl with blue eyes and dark hair was the pretty sister of whom Mrs Westgate had spoken. She presently turned to him with a remark which established her identity.
‘It’s a great pity you couldn’t have brought my brother-in-law with you. It’s a great shame he should be in New York in these days.’
‘Oh yes; it’s so very hot,’ said Lord Lambeth.
‘It must be dreadful,’ said the young girl.
‘I daresay he is very busy,’ Lord Lambeth observed.
‘The gentlemen in America work too much,’ the young girl went on.
‘Oh, do they? I daresay they like it,’ said her interlocutor.
‘I don’t like it. One never sees them.’
‘Don’t you, really?’ asked Lord Lambeth. ‘I shouldn’t have fancied that.’
‘Have you come to study American manners?’ asked the young girl.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I just came over for a lark. I haven’t got long.’ Here there was a pause, and Lord Lambeth began again. ‘But Mr Westgate will come down here, will not he?’
‘I certainly hope he will. He must help to entertain you and Mr Beaumont.’
Lord Lambeth looked at her a little with his handsome brown eyes. ‘Do you suppose he would have come down with us, if we had urged him?’
Mr Westgate’s sister-in-law was silent a moment, and then – ‘I daresay he would,’ she answered.
‘Really!’ said the young Englishman. ‘He was immensely civil to Beaumont and me,’ he added.
‘He is a dear good fellow,’ the young lady rejoined. ‘And he is a perfect husband. But all Americans are that,’ she continued, smiling.
‘Really!’ Lord Lambeth exclaimed again; and wondered whether all American ladies had such a passion for generalising as these two.
III
HE sat there a good while: there was a great deal of talk; it was all very friendly and lively and jolly. Every one present, sooner or later, said something to him, and seemed to make a particular point of addressing him by name. Two or three other persons came in, and there was a shifting of seats and changing of places; the gentlemen all entered into intimate conversation with the two Englishmen, made them urgent offers of hospitality and hoped they might frequently be of service to them. They were afraid Lord Lambeth and Mr Beaumont were not very comfortable at their hotel – that it was not, as one of them said, ‘so private as those dear little English inns of yours’. This last gentlemen went on to say that unfortunately, as yet, perhaps, privacy was not quite so easily obtained in America as might be desired; still, he continued, you could generally get it by paying for it; in fact you could get everything in America nowadays by paying for it. American life was certainly growing a great deal more private; it was growing very much like England. Everything at Newport, for instance, was thoroughly private; Lord Lambeth would probably be struck with that. It was also represented to the strangers that it mattered very little whether their hotel was agreeable, as every one would want them to make visits; they would stay with other people, and, in any case, they would be a great deal at Mrs Westgate’s. They would find that very charming; it was the pleasantest house in Newport. It was a pity Mr Westgate was always away; he was a man of the highest ability – very acute, very acute. He worked like a horse and he left his wife – well, to do about as she liked. He liked her to enjoy herself, and she seemed to know how. She was extremely brilliant, and a splendid talker. Some people preferred her sister; but Miss Alden was very different; she was in a different style altogether. Some people even thought her prettier, and, certainly, she was not so sharp. She was more in the Boston style; she had lived a great deal in Boston and she was very highly educated. Boston girls, it was intimated, were more like English young ladies.
Lord Lambeth had presently a chance to test the truth of this proposition; for on the company rising in compliance with a suggestion from their hostess that they should walk down to the rocks and look at the sea, the young Englishman again found himself, as they strolled across the grass, in proximity to Mrs Westgate’s sister. Though she was but a girl of twenty, she appeared to feel the obligation to exert an active hospitality; and this was perhaps the more to be noticed as she seemed by nature a reserved and retiring person, and had little of her sister’s fraternising quality. She was perhaps rather too thin, and she was a little pale; but as she moved slowly over the grass, with her arms hanging at her sides, looking gravely for a moment at the sea and then brightly, for all her gravity, at him, Lord Lambeth thought her at least as pretty as Mrs Westgate, and reflected that if this was the Boston style the Boston style was very charming. He thought she looked very clever; he could imagine that she was highly educated; but at the same time she seemed gentle and graceful. For all her cleverness, however, he felt that she had to think a little what to say; she didn’t say the first thing that came into her head; he had come from a different part of the world and from a different society, and she was trying to adapt her conversation. The others were scattering themselves near the rocks; Mrs Westgate had charge of Percy Beaumont.
‘Very jolly place, isn’t it?’ said Lord Lambeth. ‘It’s a very jolly place to sit.’
‘Very charming,’ said the young girl; ‘I often sit here; there are all kinds of cosy corners – as if they had been made on purpose.’
‘Ah! I suppose you have had some of them made,’ said the young man.
Miss Alden looked at him a moment. ‘Oh no, we have had nothing made. It’s pure nature.’
‘I should think you would have a few little benches – rustic seats and that sort of thing. It might be so jolly to sit here, you know,’ Lord Lambeth went on.
‘I am afraid we haven’t so many of those things as you,’ said the young girl, thoughtfully.
‘I daresay you go in for pure nature as you were saying. Nature, over here, must be so grand, you know.’ And Lord Lambeth looked about him.
The little coast-line hereabouts was very pretty, but it was not at all grand; and Miss Alden appeared to rise to a perception of this fact. ‘I am afraid it seems to you very rough,’ she said. ‘It’s not like the coast scenery in Kingsley’s novels.’
‘Ah, the novels always overdo it, you know,’ Lord Lambeth rejoined. ‘You must not go by the novels.’
They were wandering about a little on the rocks, and they stopped and looked down into a narrow chasm where the rising tide made a curious bellowing sound. It was loud enough to prevent their hearing each other, and they stood there for some moments in silence. The young girl looked at her companion, observing him attentively but covertly, as women, even when very young, know how to do. Lord Lambeth repaid observation; tall, straight and strong, he was handsome as certain young Englishmen, and certain young Englishmen almost alone, are handsome; with a perfect finish of feature and a look of intellectual repose and gentle good temper which seemed somehow to be consequent upon his well-cut nose and chin. And to speak of Lord Lambeth’s expression of intellectual repose is not simply a civil way of saying that h
e looked stupid. He was evidently not a young man of an irritable imagination; he was not, as he would himself have said, tremendously clever; but, though there was a kind of appealing dullness in his eye, he looked thoroughly reasonable and competent, and his appearance proclaimed that to be a nobleman, an athlete, and an excellent fellow, was a sufficiently brilliant combination of qualities. The young girl beside him, it may be attested without farther delay, thought him the handsomest young man she had ever seen; and Bessie Alden’s imagination, unlike that of her companion, was irritable. He, however, was also making up his mind that she was uncommonly pretty.
‘I daresay it’s very gay here – that you have lots of balls and parties,’ he said; for, if he was not tremendously clever, he rather prided himself on having, with women, a sufficiency of conversation.
‘Oh yes, there is a great deal going on,’ Bessie Alden replied. ‘There are not so many balls, but there are a good many other things. You will see for yourself; we live rather in the midst of it.’
‘It’s very kind of you to say that. But I thought you Americans were always dancing.’
‘I suppose we dance a good deal; but I have never seen much of it. We don’t do it much, at any rate, in summer. And I am sure,’ said Bessie Alden, ‘that we don’t have so many balls as you have in England.’
‘Really!’ exclaimed Lord Lambeth. ‘Ah, in England it all depends, you know.’
‘You will not think much of our gaieties,’ said the young girl, looking at him with a little mixture of interrogation and decision which was peculiar to her. The interrogation seemed earnest and the decision seemed arch; but the mixture, at any rate, was charming. ‘Those things, with us, are much less splendid than in England.’
‘I fancy you don’t mean that,’ said Lord Lambeth, laughing.