“Let’s see which of his little lot is coming to Whitby?” she said, and hunted carefully through three columns till she found that Adelaide Countess of Fylingdales, Mr. Sidney Robinson, nurse baby and suite, were at the Fylingdales Hotel, on the East Cliff. Lord Fylingdales, her eldest son, is the widower of a Gaiety girl who actually died after she had been a Countess a year, poor dear! Aunt Gerty knew her. He is Lord of the Manor here, and his portrait is all over the place.
“Old Adelaide’s a shocking frump, Lucy; you needn’t distress yourself about her!” said Aunt Gerty consolingly to Mother.
“I am not distressing myself about her, Gertrude,” replied my Mother, and she didn’t look at all distressed in her neat short blue serge seaside dress, and shady hat. She looked ten.
“I know her son,” Aunt Gerty went on. “A fish without a backbone. I very nearly had the privilege of leading him astray myself. It is Irene Lauderdale now, I hear.”
“I wish you’d stow your theatrical recollections, Gerty,” said Mother. “Come, Tempe, get your things on, we will go and take rooms for your father and my husband.”
“Brava!” said Mr. Aix. “Capital accent there.”
“Oh, you go along!” said Mother, and we went off at once and engaged George’s rooms. We got very nice large ones, with dark green outside shutters to the windows, and took a great deal of trouble to explain George’s little ways to them, for their sake as well as his. Ben will valet him. Mother told the people that he is bringing his man, who will, however, sleep out. George never gets up till twelve, French fashion.
Poor Ben, he may as well make himself useful, for he certainly isn’t ornamental just now. He can’t speak, he can only croak, and though he isn’t very big, he seems to have the power of burrowing inside himself and bringing up a great voice like a steam-roller. He is not a manly man, yet, but he certainly is a boily boy. He has got some spots on his face that he thinks much bigger than they really are, and he keeps them and himself out of sight as much as possible. He says just now he doesn’t care at all what he does, he doesn’t even mind playing servant for a bit, if George would like it. Mother tells him he is a good boy and the comfort of her life, and that if she can manage it, she will get him sent to college after this, only he had better please the mammon of unrighteousness all he can. So he means to be a good valet to the Mammon.
The Fylingdales Hotel is in the best part of the town, on the East Cliff, and they dine late there every evening, and don’t pull the blinds down, and the townspeople walk backwards and forwards, and watch the people dining at seven-thirty, dressed in their nudity. I think evening dress looks quite wrong at the seaside. Aunt Gerty and Mother put on a different blouse every evening, and look nice and cosy and comfortable, though George does say sarcastic things about the tyranny of the blouse, and the way Aunt Gerty will call it Blowse. I wash my face, that is all the dressing I do. Ben puts on an old smoker of George’s, and flattens out his hair to support the character of being the only gentleman of the party, unless Mr. Aix is there to supper, and the less said about Mr. Aix’s clothes the better.
Ben makes boats all day, when he isn’t in one, and Ariadne makes poetry. Her one idea, having come to the sea for her health, is to avoid it, and seek the rather scrubby sort of woods which is all you can expect at the seaside. So every afternoon nearly we take a donkey to Ruswarp or to Cock Mill, and “ride and tie.” We used to pick out a very smart donkey, but a very naughty one. He was called Bishop Beck, perhaps for that reason, and he went slow,—that was to be expected, but when he stopped quite still and wouldn’t move for an hour or more in the middle of Cock Mill Wood, long, long after one had stopped beating him (for he looked at us and made us feel ridiculous), Ariadne said she would rather do without adventitious aid of this kind, for it interfered with her afflatus.