“There's nothing like it,” said King—“there's nothing like this island. It seems as if the Creator had determined to show man, once for all, a landscape perfectly refined, you might almost say with the beauty of high-breeding, refined in outline, color, everything softened into loveliness, and yet touched with the wild quality of picturesqueness.”
“It's just a dream at this moment,” murmured Irene. They were standing on a promontory of rock. “See those figures of people there through the mist—silhouettes only. And look at that vessel—there—no—it has gone.”
As she was speaking, a sail-vessel began to loom up large in the mysterious haze. But was it not the ghost of a ship? For an instant it was coming, coming; it was distinct; and when it was plainly in sight it faded away, like a dissolving view, and was gone. The appearance was unreal. What made it more spectral was the bell on the reefs, swinging in its triangle, always sounding, and the momentary scream of the fog-whistle. It was like an enchanted coast. Regaining the carriage, they drove out to the end, Agassiz's Point, where, when the mist lifted, they saw the sea all round dotted with sails, the irregular coasts and islands with headlands and lighthouses, all the picture still, land and water in a summer swoon.
Late that afternoon all the party were out upon the cliff path in front of the cottages. There is no more lovely sea stroll in the world, the way winding over the cliff edge by the turquoise sea, where the turf, close cut and green as Erin, set with flower beds and dotted with noble trees, slopes down, a broad pleasure park, from the stately and picturesque villas. But it was a social mistake to go there on Sunday. Perhaps it is not the height of good form to walk there any day, but Mr. King did not know that the fashion had changed, and that on Sunday this lovely promenade belongs to the butlers and the upper maids, especially to the butlers, who make it resplendent on Sunday afternoons when the weather is good. As the weather had thickened in the late afternoon, our party walked in a dumb-show, listening to the soft swish of the waves on the rocks below, and watching the figures of other promenaders, who were good enough ladies and gentlemen in this friendly mist.
The next day Mr. King made a worse mistake. He remembered that at high noon everybody went down to the first beach, a charming sheltered place at the bottom of the bay, where the rollers tumble in finely from the south, to bathe or see others bathe. The beach used to be lined with carriages at that hour, and the surf, for a quarter of a mile, presented the appearance of a line of picturesquely clad skirmishers going out to battle with the surf. Today there were not half a dozen carriages and omnibuses altogether, and the bathers were few-nursery maids, fragments of a day-excursion, and some of the fair conventionists. Newport was not there. Mr. King had led his party into another social blunder. It has ceased to be fashionable to bathe at Newport.
Strangers and servants may do so, but the cottagers have withdrawn their support from the ocean. Saltwater may be carried to the house and used without loss of caste, but bathing in the surf is vulgar. A gentleman may go down and take a dip alone—it had better be at an early hour—and the ladies of the house may be heard to apologize for his eccentricity, as if his fondness for the water were abnormal and quite out of experience. And the observer is obliged to admit that promiscuous bathing is vulgar, as it is plain enough to be seen when it becomes unfashionable. It is charitable to think also that the cottagers have made it unfashionable because it is vulgar, and not because it is a cheap and refreshing pleasure accessible to everybody.
Nevertheless, Mr. King's ideas of Newport were upset. “It's a little off color to walk much on the cliffs; you lose caste if you bathe in the surf. What can you do?”
“Oh,” explained Miss Lamont, “you can make calls; go to teas and receptions and dinners; belong to the Casino, but not appear there much; and you must drive on the Ocean Road, and look as English as you can. Didn't you notice that Redfern has an establishment on the Avenue? Well, the London girls wear what Redfern tells them to wear-much to the improvement of their appearance—and so it has become possible for a New-Yorker to become partially English without sacrificing her native taste.”
Before lunch Mrs. Bartlett Glow called on the Bensons, and invited them to a five-o'clock tea, and Miss Lamont, who happened to be in the parlor, was included in the invitation. Mrs. Glow was as gracious as possible, and especially attentive to the old lady, who purred with pleasure, and beamed and expanded into familiarity under the encouragement of the woman of the world. In less than ten minutes Mrs. Glow had learned the chief points in the family history, the state of health and habits of pa (Mr. Benson), and all about Cyrusville and its wonderful growth. In all this Mrs. Glow manifested a deep interest, and learned, by observing out of the corner of her eye, that Irene was in an agony of apprehension, which she tried to conceal under an increasing coolness of civility. “A nice lady,” was Mrs. Benson's comment when Mrs. Glow had taken herself away with her charmingly-scented air of frank cordiality—“a real nice lady. She seemed just like our folks.”
Irene heaved a deep sigh. “I suppose we shall have to go.”