Their Pilgrimage. Charles Dudley Warner

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of life, her fearless freedom of manner, and about whom he is apt to make the mistake of supposing that this freedom has not perfectly well-defined limits. It was a delightful day, such as often comes, even in winter, within the Capes of Virginia; the sun was genial, the bay was smooth, with only a light breeze that kept the water sparkling brilliantly, and just enough tonic in the air to excite the spirits. The little tug, which was pretty well packed with the merry company, was swift, and danced along in an exhilarating manner. The bay, as everybody knows, is one of the most commodious in the world, and would be one of the most beautiful if it had hills to overlook it. There is, to be sure, a tranquil beauty in its wooded headlands and long capes, and it is no wonder that the early explorers were charmed with it, or that they lost their way in its inlets, rivers, and bays. The company at first made a pretense of trying to understand its geography, and asked a hundred questions about the batteries, and whence the Merrimac appeared, and where the Congress was sunk, and from what place the Monitor darted out upon its big antagonist. But everything was on a scale so vast that it was difficult to localize these petty incidents (big as they were in consequences), and the party soon abandoned history and geography for the enjoyment of the moment. Song began to take the place of conversation. A couple of banjos were produced, and both the facility and the repertoire of the young ladies who handled them astonished Irene. The songs were of love and summer seas, chansons in French, minor melodies in Spanish, plain declarations of affection in distinct English, flung abroad with classic abandon, and caught up by the chorus in lilting strains that partook of the bounding, exhilarating motion of the little steamer. Why, here is material, thought King, for a troupe of bacchantes, lighthearted leaders of a summer festival. What charming girls, quick of wit, dashing in repartee, who can pick the strings, troll a song, and dance a brando!

      “It's like sailing over the Bay of Naples,” Irene was saying to Mr. King, who had found a seat beside her in the little cabin; “the guitar-strumming and the impassioned songs, only that always seems to me a manufactured gayety, an attempt to cheat the traveler into the belief that all life is a holiday. This is spontaneous.”

      “Yes, and I suppose the ancient Roman gayety, of which the Neapolitan is an echo, was spontaneous once. I wonder if our society is getting to dance and frolic along like that of old at Baiae!”

      “Oh, Mr. King, this is an excursion. I assure you the American girl is a serious and practical person most of the time. You've been away so long that your standards are wrong. She's not nearly so knowing as she seems to be.”

      The boat was preparing to land at Newport News—a sand bank, with a railway terminus, a big elevator, and a hotel. The party streamed along in laughing and chatting groups, through the warehouse and over the tracks and the sandy hillocks to the hotel. On the way they captured a novel conveyance, a cart with an ox harnessed in the shafts, the property of an aged negro, whose white hair and variegated raiment proclaimed him an ancient Virginian, a survival of the war. The company chartered this establishment, and swarmed upon it till it looked like a Neapolitan 'calesso', and the procession might have been mistaken for a harvest-home—the harvest of beauty and fashion. The hotel was captured without a struggle on the part of the regular occupants, a dance extemporized in the dining-room, and before the magnitude of the invasion was realized by the garrison, the dancing feet and the laughing girls were away again, and the little boat was leaping along in the Elizabeth River towards the Portsmouth Navy-yard.

      It isn't a model war establishment this Portsmouth yard, but it is a pleasant resort, with its stately barracks and open square and occasional trees. In nothing does the American woman better show her patriotism than in her desire to inspect naval vessels and understand dry-docks under the guidance of naval officers. Besides some old war hulks at the station, there were a couple of training-ships getting ready for a cruise, and it made one proud of his country to see the interest shown by our party in everything on board of them, patiently listening to the explanation of the breech-loading guns, diving down into the between-decks, crowded with the schoolboys, where it is impossible for a man to stand upright and difficult to avoid the stain of paint and tar, or swarming in the cabin, eager to know the mode of the officers' life at sea. So these are the little places where they sleep? and here is where they dine, and here is a library—a haphazard case of books in the saloon.

      It was in running her eyes over these that a young lady discovered that the novels of Zola were among the nautical works needed in the navigation of a ship of war.

      On the return—and the twenty miles seemed short enough—lunch was served, and was the occasion of a good deal of hilarity and innocent badinage. There were those who still sang, and insisted on sipping the heel-taps of the morning gayety; but was King mistaken in supposing that a little seriousness had stolen upon the party—a serious intention, namely, between one and another couple? The wind had risen, for one thing, and the little boat was so tossed about by the vigorous waves that the skipper declared it would be imprudent to attempt to land on the Rip-Raps. Was it the thought that the day was over, and that underneath all chaff and hilarity there was the question of settling in life to be met some time, which subdued a little the high spirits, and gave an air of protection and of tenderness to a couple here and there? Consciously, perhaps, this entered into the thought of nobody; but still the old story will go on, and perhaps all the more rapidly under a mask of raillery and merriment.

      There was great bustling about, hunting up wraps and lost parasols and mislaid gloves, and a chorus of agreement on the delight of the day, upon going ashore, and Mrs. Cortlandt, who looked the youngest and most animated of the flock, was quite overwhelmed with thanks and congratulations upon the success of her excursion.

      “Yes, it was perfect; you've given us all a great deal of pleasure, Mrs. Cortlandt,” Mr. King was saying, as he stood beside her, watching the exodus.

      Perhaps Mrs. Cortlandt fancied his eyes were following a particular figure, for she responded, “And how did you like her?”

      “Like her—Miss Benson? Why, I didn't see much of her. I thought she was very intelligent—seemed very much interested when Lieutenant Green was explaining to her what made the drydock dry—but they were all that. Did you say her eyes were gray? I couldn't make out if they were not rather blue after all—large, changeable sort of eyes, long lashes; eyes that look at you seriously and steadily, without the least bit of coquetry or worldliness; eyes expressing simplicity and interest in what you are saying—not in you, but in what you are saying. So few women know how to listen; most women appear to be thinking of themselves and the effect they are producing.”

      Mrs. Cortlandt laughed. “Ah; I see. And a little 'sadness' in them, wasn't there? Those are the most dangerous eyes. The sort that follow you, that you see in the dark at night after the gas is turned off.”

      “I haven't the faculty of seeing things in the dark, Mrs. Cortlandt. Oh, there's the mother!” And the shrill voice of Mrs. Benson was heard, “We was getting uneasy about you. Pa says a storm's coming, and that you'd be as sick as sick.”

      The weather was changing. But that evening the spacious hotel, luxurious, perfectly warmed, and well lighted, crowded with an agreeable if not a brilliant company—for Mr. King noted the fact that none of the gentlemen dressed for dinner—seemed all the more pleasant for the contrast with the weather outside. Thus housed, it was pleasant to hear the waves dashing against the breakwater. Just by chance, in the ballroom, Mr. King found himself seated by Mrs. Benson and a group of elderly ladies, who had the perfunctory air of liking the mild gayety of the place. To one of them Mr. King was presented, Mrs. Stimpson—a stout woman with a broad red face and fishy eyes, wearing an elaborate head-dress with purple flowers, and attired as if she were expecting to take a prize. Mrs. Stimpson was loftily condescending, and asked Mr. King if this was his first visit. She'd been coming here years and years; never could get through the spring without a few weeks at the Hygeia. Mr. King saw a good many people at this hotel who seemed to regard it as a home.

      “I hope your daughter, СКАЧАТЬ