"It will certainly be much nicer having friends there," was a remark that had one day dropped from Bessie while she sat on the sunny deck of the steamer, at her sister"s feet, from under which spread conveniently a large soft rug.
"Whom do you mean by friends?" Mrs. Westgate had then invited the girl to say.
"All those English gentlemen you"ve known and entertained. Captain Littledale, for instance. And Lord Lambeth and Mr. Beaumont," the girl further mentioned.
"Do you expect them to give us a very grand reception?"
She reflected a moment; she was addicted, as we know, to fine reflexion.
"Well-to be nice."
"My poor sweet child!" murmured her sister.
"What have I said that"s so silly?" Bessie asked.
"You"re a little too simple; just a little. It"s very becoming, but it pleases people at your expense."
"I"m certainly too simple to understand you," said our young lady.
Mrs. Westgate had an ominous pause. "Shall I tell you a story?"
"If you"d be so good. That"s what"s frequently done to amuse simple people."
Mrs. Westgate consulted her memory while her companion sat at gaze of the shining sea. "Did you ever hear of the Duke of Green-Erin?"
"I think not," said Bessie.
"Well, it"s no matter," her sister went on.
"It"s a proof of my simplicity."
"My story"s meant to ill.u.s.trate that of some other people," said Mrs.
Westgate. "The Duke of Green-Erin"s what they call in England a great swell, and some five years ago he came to America. He spent most of his time in New York, and in New York he spent his days and his nights at the b.u.t.terworths". You"ve heard at least of the b.u.t.terworths. _Bien_. They did everything in the world for him-the poor b.u.t.terworths-they turned themselves inside out. They gave him a dozen dinner-parties and b.a.l.l.s, and were the means of his being invited to fifty more. At first he used to come into Mrs. b.u.t.terworth"s box at the opera in a tweed travelling-suit, but some one stopped that. At any rate he had a beautiful time and they parted the best friends in the world. Two years elapse and the b.u.t.terworths come abroad and go to London. The first thing they see in all the papers-in England those things are in the most prominent place-is that the Duke of Green-Erin has arrived in town for the season. They wait a little, and then Mr. b.u.t.terworth-as polite as ever-goes and leaves a card. They wait a little more; the visit"s not returned; they wait three weeks: _silence de mort_, the Duke gives no sign. The b.u.t.terworths see a lot of other people, put down the Duke of Green-Erin as a rude ungrateful man and forget all about him. One fine day they go to Ascot Races-where they meet him face to face. He stares a moment and then comes up to Mr. b.u.t.terworth, taking something from his pocket-book-something which proves to be a banknote. "I"m glad to see you, Mr. b.u.t.terworth," he says, "so that I can pay you that ten pounds I lost to you in New York. I saw the other day you remembered our bet; here are the ten pounds, Mr. b.u.t.terworth. Good-bye, Mr. b.u.t.terworth."
And off he goes, and that"s the last they see of the Duke of Green-Erin."
"Is that your story?" asked Bessie Alden.
"Don"t tell me you don"t think it interesting!" her sister replied.
"I don"t think I believe it," said the girl.
"Ah, then," cried Mrs. Westgate, "mademoiselle isn"t of such an unspotted _candeur_! Believe it or not as you like. There"s at any rate no smoke without fire."
"Is that the way," asked Bessie after a moment, "that you expect your friends to treat you?"
"I defy them to treat me very ill, for the simple reason that I shall never give them the opportunity. With the best will in the world, in that case, they can"t be very disobliging."
Our young lady for a time said nothing. "I don"t see what makes you talk that way," she then resumed. "The English are a great people."
"Exactly; and that"s just the way they"ve grown great-by dropping you when you"ve ceased to be useful. People say they aren"t clever, but I find them prodigiously clever."
"You know you"ve liked them-all the Englishmen you"ve seen," Bessie brought up.
"They"ve liked _me_," her sister returned; "so I think I"d rather put it.
And of course one likes that."
Bessie pursued for some moments her studies in sea-green. "Well," she said, "whether they like me or not, I mean to like them. And happily,"
she wound up, "Lord Lambeth doesn"t owe me ten pounds."
During the first few days after their arrival at Jones"s Hotel our charming Americans were much occupied with what they would have called looking about them. They found occasion to make numerous purchases, and their opportunities for inquiry and comment were only those supplied by the deferential London shopmen. Bessie Alden, even in driving from the station, felt to intensity the many-voiced appeal of the capital of the race from which she had sprung, and, at the risk of exhibiting her as a person of vulgar tastes, it must be recorded that for many days she desired no higher pleasure than to roll about the crowded streets in the public conveyances. They presented to her attentive eyes strange pictures and figures, and it"s at least beneath the dignity of our historic muse to enumerate the trivial objects and incidents in which the imagination of this simple young lady from Boston lost itself. It may be freely mentioned, however, that whenever, after a round of visits in Bond Street and Regent Street, she was about to return with her sister to Jones"s Hotel, she desired they should, at whatever cost to convenience, be driven home by way of Westminster Abbey. She had begun by asking if it wouldn"t be possible to take the Tower _en route_ to their lodgings; but it happened that at a more primitive stage of her culture Mrs.
Westgate had paid a visit to this venerable relic, which she spoke of ever afterwards, vaguely, as a dreadful disappointment. She thus expressed the liveliest disapproval of any attempt to combine historical researches with the purchase of hair-brushes and notepaper. The most she would consent to do in the line of backward brooding was to spend half an hour at Madame Tussaud"s, where she saw several dusty wax effigies of members of the Royal Family. It was made clear to Bessie that if she wished to go to the Tower she must get some one else to take her. Bessie expressed hereupon an earnest disposition to go alone; but in respect to this proposal as well Mrs. Westgate had the cold sense of complications.
"Remember," she said, "that you"re not in your innocent little Boston.
It"s not a question of walking up and down Beacon Street." With which she went on to explain that there were two cla.s.ses of American girls in Europe-those who walked about alone and those who didn"t. "You happen to belong, my dear," she said to her sister, "to the cla.s.s that doesn"t."
"It"s only," laughed Bessie, though all yearningly, "because you happen quite arbitrarily to place me." And she devoted much private meditation to this question of effecting a visit to the Tower of London.
Suddenly it seemed as if the problem might be solved; the two ladies at Jones"s Hotel received a visit from Willie Woodley. So was familiarly designated a young American who had sailed from New York a few days after their own departure and who, enjoying some freedom of acquaintance with them in that city, had lost no time, on his arrival in London, in coming to pay them his respects. He had in fact gone to see them directly after going to see his tailor; than which there can be no greater exhibition of prompt.i.tude on the part of a young American just installed at the Charing Cross Hotel. He was a slight, mild youth, without high colour but with many elegant forms, famous for the authority with which he led the "German" in New York. He was indeed, by the young ladies who habitually figured in such evolutions, reckoned "the best dancer in the world"; it was in those terms he was always spoken of and his pleasant ident.i.ty indicated. He was the most convenient gentle young man, for almost any casual light purpose, it was possible to meet; he was beautifully dressed-"in the English style"-and knew an immense deal about London. He had been at Newport during the previous summer, at the time of our young Englishmen"s visit, and he took extreme pleasure in the society of Bessie Alden, whom he never addressed but as "Miss Bessie." She immediately arranged with him, in the presence of her sister, that he should guide her to the scene of Lady Jane Grey"s execution.
"You may do as you please," said Mrs. Westgate. "Only-if you desire the information-it is not the custom here for young ladies to knock about London with wild young men."
"Miss Bessie has waltzed with me so often-not to call it so wildly," the young man returned, "that she can surely go out with me in a jog-trot cab."
"I consider public waltzing," said Mrs. Westgate, "the most innocent, because the most guarded and regulated, pleasure of our time."
"It"s a jolly compliment to our time!" Mr. Woodley cried with a laugh of the most candid significance.
"I don"t see why I should regard what"s done here," Bessie pursued. "Why should I suffer the restrictions of a society of which I enjoy none of the privileges?"
"That"s very good-very good," her friend applauded.
"Oh, go to the Tower and feel the axe if you like!" said Mrs. Westgate.
"I consent to your going with Mr. Woodley; but I wouldn"t let you go with an Englishman."
"Miss Bessie wouldn"t care to go with an Englishman!" Mr. Woodley declared with an asperity doubtless not unnatural in a young man who, dressing in a manner that I have indicated and knowing a great deal, as I have said, about London, saw no reason for drawing these sharp distinctions. He agreed upon a day with Miss Bessie-a day of that same week; while an ingenious mind might perhaps have traced a connexion between the girl"s reference to her lack of social privilege or festal initiation and a question she asked on the morrow as she sat with her sister at luncheon.
"Don"t you mean to write to-to any one?"
"I wrote this morning to Captain Littledale," Mrs. Westgate replied.
"But Mr. Woodley believes Captain Littledale away in India."
"He said he thought he had heard so; he knows nothing about it."
For a moment Bessie said nothing more; then at last, "And don"t you intend to write to-to Mr. Beaumont?" she inquired.
Her sister waited with a look at her. "You mean to Lord Lambeth."
"I said Mr. Beaumont because he was-at Newport-so good a friend of yours."