Back Aa

Prince or Chauffeur? A Story of Newport

<h3> CHAPTER II </h3> <h3> MISS WELLINGTON ENLARGES HER EXPERIENCE </h3> Few places in the well-ordered centres of civilization are so altogether dreary as Wickford Junction, shortly before five o'clock in the morning, when the usual handful of passengers alight from the Boston express. The sun has not yet climbed to the top of the seaward hills of Rhode Island, the station and environment rest in a damp semi-gloom, everything shut in, silent—as though Nature herself had paused for a brief time before bursting into glad, effulgent day. The station is locked; one grocery store in the distance presents a grim, boarded front to the sleeping street. No one is awake save the arriving passengers; they are but half so, hungry and in the nature of things cross. Mrs. Wellington was undisguisedly in that mood. Armitage found some degree of sardonic pleasure in watching her as she viewed with cold disapproval the drowsy maids and her daughter, who although as immaculate and fresh and cool and altogether delightful as the morning promised to be, persisted in yawning from time to time with the utmost abandon. Armitage had never seen a woman quite like the mother. Somewhat above medium height, there was nothing in the least way matronly about her figure; it had still the beautiful supple lines of her youth, and her dark brown hair was untinged by the slightest suggestion of gray. It was the face that portrayed the inexorable progress of the years and the habits and all that in them had lain. Cold, calculating, unyielding, the metallic eyes dominated a gray lineament, seamed and creased with fine hair-like lines. No flippant, light-headed, pleasure-seeking creature of society was Belle Wellington. Few of her sort are, public belief to the contrary notwithstanding. Her famous fight for social primacy, now lying far behind in the vague past, had been a struggle worthy of an epic, however meticulous the object of her ambition may have appeared in the eyes of many good people. At all events she had striven for a goal not easy of attainment. Many years before, on the deck of her husband's yacht—whither, by methods she sternly had forgotten, had been lured a select few of a select circle—the fight had begun. Even now she awoke sometimes at night with a shudder, having lived again in vivid dream that August afternoon in Newport Harbor, when she sat at her tea table facing the first ordeal. She had come through it. With what rare felicity had she scattered her conversational charms; with what skill had she played upon the pet failings and foibles of her guests; what unerring judgment had been hers, and memory of details, unfailing tact, and exquisite taste! A triumph, yes. And the first knowledge of it had come in a lingering hand clasp from the great man of them all and a soft "dear" in the farewell words of his wife. But she had fainted in her cabin after they left. Since that day she had gone far. She was on familiar terms with an English earl and two dukes; she had entertained an emperor aboard her yacht; in New York and Newport there were but two women to dispute her claims as social dictator, and one of these, through a railroad coup of her husband's, would soon be forced to her knees. It was all in her face. Armitage could read it there in the hard shrewd lines, the cold, heartless, vindictive lines, or the softer lines which the smiles could form when smiles were necessary, which was not so often now as in former years. And in place of the beauty now gone, she ruled by sheer power and wit, which time had turned to biting acidity,—and by the bitter diplomacy of the Medicis. "Ugh!" Armitage drew his pipe from his pocket with humorous muttering. "A dreadnaught, all right. An out-and-out sundowner. And I beg leave to advise myself that the best thing about fair Anne is that she favors her father, or some relative considerably more saintly than My Lady of the Marble Face." As Armitage passed the group in pacing the platform, the woman whom he had been studying raised her eyes and gazed at him with just a touch of imperiousness. "I beg your pardon," she said, and a trace of the little formal smile appeared; "but can you tell me when we are to have a train?" Armitage glanced at his watch. "It is due now," he said, "I think—here it comes," he added, inclining his head towards a curve in the track around which a little locomotive was pushing two dingy cars. Mrs. Wellington nodded her thanks and turned to her daughter, as though dismissing Armitage, who, indeed, had evinced no desire to remain, walking toward the upper end of the platform where his bag reposed upon a pile of trunks. He did not see them again until they boarded the General at Wickford Landing for the trip down Narragansett Bay. They were all in the upper cabin, where Mrs. Wellington was evidently preparing to doze. Armitage walked forward and stood on the deck under the pilot house, watching the awakening of the picturesque village across the narrow harbor, until the steamboat began to back out into the bay. The sunlight was glorious, the skies blue, and the air fresh and sparkling. Armitage faced the breeze with bared head and was drawing in deep draughts of air when footsteps sounded behind him, and Anne Wellington and her maid came to the rail. "How perfectly delightful, Emilia," she exclaimed. "Now if I could have a rusk and some coffee I should enjoy myself thoroughly. Why don't they conduct this boat like an English liner!" Her eyes, filled with humorous light, swept past Armitage; yes, they were hazel. "I am so hungry, Emilia!" She smiled and sniffed the air with mock ardor. "Emilia, did n't you smell that tantalizing odor of hot biscuits in the cabin? I wonder where it came from." Armitage suddenly remembered a previous journey in this boat and he was on the point of addressing the girl when he checked himself, but only for a minute. Her mother had addressed him in her presence, had she not? Certainly that constituted, well, if not an acquaintance, at least something which involved warrant to assist her in time of stress, which he decided to be here and now. So he turned to the girl with that boyish grin and that twinkling of his clear, gray eyes which people found so contagious in him, and addressed her in the most natural way. "If I don't intrude egregiously—" He rounded out this beautiful word, a favorite of his father's, with a drawling, tentative inflection, which caused Anne to smile in spite of herself. Seeing which Armitage continued: "I happen to know that the steward in the galley below makes biscuits and brews coffee at this hour each morning such as are given to few mortals. If you 'll allow me the honor of playing waiter, I 'll be delighted to serve you in the cabin." <center> <ANTIMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-026.jpg" ALT=""If you'll allow me the honor of playing waiter, I'll be delighted to serve you in the cabin."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="467" HEIGHT="664"> <H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 467px"> "If you'll allow me the honor of playing waiter, I'll be delighted to serve you in the cabin." </h4> </center> Anne Wellington heard him in wide-eyed astonishment. Then she laughed, not at all affectedly, and glanced swiftly through the cabin windows, to where her mother sat apparently in slumber. "I thank you. It's awfully polite of you. But you needn't play waiter. Instead—would it be too much trouble for you to show us where the—the—" "Galley," suggested Armitage. "Where the galley is?" Armitage hesitated. "No," he said, "it would be a pleasure. Only, the galley, or, rather, the mess room, is rather a stuffy place. I—" "Oh, I should n't mind that in the least. I am not unused to roughing it." She turned to her maid. "Emilia, go and tell Morgan to say to mother, if she wakes, that we are in the galley, breakfasting on plum duff." Armitage said nothing while they waited for her return. Anne Wellington was silent, too. She simply stood waiting, tapping the toe of one of her small russet pumps on the deck and gazing out over the bay with a curious little smile rippling up from the corner of her mouth. Armitage did not quite understand her. While she had been cordial enough, yet there was an underlying suggestion of reserve, not at all apparent and yet unmistakably felt. It was, he felt, as though in her life and training and experience, she had acquired a poise, a knowledge of at least certain parts of the world and its affairs, which gave her confidence, made her at home, and taught her how to deal with situations which other girls less broadly endowed would have found over-powering, or, at best, distinctly embarrassing. Not that Armitage had in any way sought to embarrass Miss Wellington. He had spoken simply upon impulse, being of that nature, and he could not but admire the way in which she had diagnosed his motive, or rather lack of motive save a chivalrous desire to serve. Evidently she had long been accustomed to the homage of men, and more, she was apparently a girl who knew how to appraise it at its true value in any given case. If Armitage had but known it, this was a qualification, not without its value to the girls and elder women who occupied Anne Wellington's plane of social existence. The society calendar of scandal is mainly a list of those who have not possessed this essential. When the maid returned, Miss Wellington smiled and nodded to Armitage, who led the way into the cabin and to the main stairway and thence down into the hold. The steward was a bustling, voluble little man with well-rounded proportions and a walrus-like mustache. As Armitage and his two companions entered, he was engaged in removing a coffee-stained table cover—the crew had finished breakfasting—which he replaced with a spotless red-and-white checkered cloth. "Steward," said Armitage, falling unconsciously into the crisp voice of command, "get some coffee and biscuits for this lady and her maid, please." "Yes, sir," the steward smiled affably, "certainly, sir. They 're fine this morning—the biscuits, I mean. Fine!" "Very good," said Armitage. He pulled two chairs to the table and was leaving the room when the girl looked over her shoulder. "Are n't you going to join us?" she asked. "Well," said Armitage smiling, "I was going to breakfast in the galley. It is so warm by the range, you know." "Nonsense! Don't mind us. It's rather novel breakfasting with one's maid—and a stranger." She said this in rather an absent manner, as though the fact to which she called attention were almost too obvious for remark. Certainly it was not said in any way to impel Armitage to introduce himself, and he had no wish to take advantage of a lame opportunity. "Yes," he said, seating himself at one end of the table; "it impresses me that way, too." To say that the biscuits were delicious and the coffee uplifting, inspiring, would, in the mind of all who have shared the matutinal hospitality of the steward of the General, be an inadequate expression of gastronomic gratitude. Let it be sufficient to note that Anne Wellington beamed gratefully upon the steward, who, expanding under the genial influence, discussed his art with rare unction. "The secret," he said, leaning confidentially over the back of Miss Wellington's chair, "is to be sparin' of the yeast; and then there is somethin' in raisin' 'em proper. Now, the last time Mrs. Jack Vanderlip was down here, she made me give her the receipt for them identical biscuits; gave me a dollar for it." "Mrs. Jack Vanderlip!" cried Miss Wellington, "did she ever grace your table?" "Did she ever grace this table! Well, I should say so, and the Tyler girls and Hammie Van Rensselaer and Billy Anstruther,—he comes down here often." Miss Wellington laughed. "I often have marvelled at Billy's peach-blow complexion," she said; "now I have the secret." "Don't tell him I said so, Miss Wellington," said the steward. The girl, with a biscuit poised daintily in her fingers, did not seem surprised to hear her name. "Your acquaintance is rather exten—rather large," she said. The steward actually blushed. "I live in Newport, miss," he said. "Oh!" That was all, and the curious little smile did not leave her face. But Armitage noticed that in some way the steward found no further opportunity for exercising his garrulity. Evidently she assumed that Armitage now knew whom she was, if he had not known before the steward uttered her name, for he noticed a slight modifying of her previous attitude of thorough enjoyment. For his part, Armitage of course had no reason for altering his bearing, and that he did not was observed and appreciated by his companion. This eventually had the effect of restoring both to their former footing. "Yes," she said finally, "it has been rather a novel experience. I am indebted to you." "Not to me," said Armitage. Then, by way of conversation, "novel experiences, as a rule, are not so easily had." "No, I grasp them whenever," she jerked her head toward the cabin above and smiled, "whenever I can, conveniently. My old tutor in Munich was always impressing it upon me never to neglect such opportunities." "Opportunities? Oh, I see—slumming." Armitage glanced about the apartment and laughed. She frowned. "I was speaking categorically, not specifically; at least I meant to. I did not mean slumming; I detest it. 'Seine erfahrungen erweitern'—enlarging one's experience—is the way my teacher put it. Life is so well-ordered with us. There are many well-defined things to do—any number of them. The trouble is, they are all so well defined. We glide along and take our switches, as father would say, like so many trains." She smiled. "And so I love to run off the track once in a while." "May I have the credit of having misplaced the switch?" Armitage's eyes were twinkling as the girl arose with a nod. In the upper cabin, Mrs. Wellington, apparently, still slept, to Armitage's great joy. Her daughter, with hardly a glance into the cabin, stepped to the rail and looked down the bay with radiant face. The promise of the early hours had been established; it was a beautiful day. It was one of these mornings typical of the hour; it looked like morning, smelt like morning, there was the distinct, clean, pure, inspiring feel of morning. The skies were an even turquoise with little filmy, fleecy shreds of clouds drifting across; the air was elixir; and the blue waters, capped here and there with white, ran joyously to meet the green sloping shores, where the haze still lingered. Ahead, an island glowed like an opal. "Perfect, perfectly stunning!" cried the girl. Somehow Armitage felt the absence of that vague barrier which, heretofore, she had seemed almost unconsciously to interpose, as her eyes, filled with sheer vivacity, met his. "What are those little things bobbing up and down in the water over there?" she asked. "I believe that is the torpedo testing ground," he said. "Torpedoes! Ugh!" She shrugged her shoulders. "Mother knew Vereshchagin, who was in the Petrapavlovsk when she struck the Japanese torpedo and turned upside down. Do you know anything about torpedoes?" "Not much; a little." Armitage thrilled at the first sign she had given him that she considered or was in any way curious regarding his personality. She looked at him. "I am certain I have seen you before," she said. "You don't live in Newport?" "That is not my home," said Armitage. "I come from Kentucky. I am something of a wanderer, being a sort of fighter by profession." The girl started. "Not a prize fighter?" She glanced quickly at the handsome, square, fighting face, the broad chest and shoulders, and flushed. "Are you really that?" Armitage had intended to tell her he was a naval officer, but obsessed of the imp of mischief, he nodded. "I can imagine situations wherein I might fight for a prize." She overlooked what she regarded as the apparent modesty of his answer. "Really!" she exclaimed. "How interesting! Now I am glad I met you. I had no idea you were that, of all things. You seemed—" She checked herself. "But tell me, how did you begin? Tommy Dallas is keen on your sort. Did he ever—ever back you, I believe he calls it—in a fight?" The new trend speedily had become distasteful to Armitage, who inwardly was floundering for a method of escape from the predicament into which his folly had led him. He had no wish to pose as a freak in her eyes. Still, no solution offered itself. "No," he said at length, "he never backed me. As a matter of fact, I am more of a physical instructor, now." "Oh," she said, disappointedly, "I was going to gloat over Tommy. Physical instructor! Do you know father is looking for one for my two kid brothers? Why don't you apply?" "Thanks," said Armitage, a bit ungraciously, "perhaps I shall." Plainly the girl's interest in him was fast waning. Extremely chapfallen and deeply disgusted with himself, Armitage bowed, and, muttering something about looking after his luggage, withdrew. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.