Geoffrey Hamstead Part 17

"Well, I suppose your answer," said Jack, "is sufficient for yourself.

You study science, then, to persuade yourself that when you die you will remain teetotally dead?"

"Rather to make myself content with a truth which is different from and not so pleasant as that which we are taught in early life."

"For goodness' sake," cried Mr. Lemons, yawning, "pa.s.s the claret."

CHAPTER XIII.

Visam Britannos hospitibus feros.

HORACE, _Lib. 3, Carm. 4._

Mrs. Dusenall liked the visit to Kingston. She was proud of the appearance her guests and family made at the church, and she thought of going home and writing a book as prodigal of pretty woodcuts and fascinating price-lists as those published by other gilded ladies. True, she had with her no young children wherewith to awake interest in foreign places by detailing what occurred in the s.h.i.+p's nursery; and thus she might have been driven to say something about the foreign places themselves, which, in a book of travels, are perhaps of secondary importance when a whole gilded family may be studied in their interesting retirement.

They kept a log on the Ideal, and each one had to take his or her turn at keeping the account of the cruise posted up to date.

Some events on board or near the Ideal did not come under Mrs.

Dusenall's notice and did not appear in the log-book. n.o.body flirted with Mrs. Dusenall to make her experience exciting, and her book, if written, would have been one long panorama of landscape interlarded with the mildest of items. But compress your world even to the size of a yacht, and there will be still more going on, in the same eternal way, than any one person can observe, especially if that person happens to be a chaperon.

The first evening among the islands was spent in different ways. Some paddled about to explore or bathe. Flirtation of a mild type was prevalent--interesting possibly to the parties concerned, and, as usual, to themselves only. Toward dusk the gig was manned by the crew for the transportation of Mrs. Dusenall and part of her suite across the river through the islands to the hotels at Alexandria Bay on the American sh.o.r.e. The hotel guests on the balconies and verandas were continuing to enjoy or endure that eternal siesta which at these places seems to be quite unbroken save at meal times, and the arrival of a number of very presentable people in a handsome gig, rowed in the man-of-war style by uniformed sailors and steered by a person with a gold-lace badge on his cap, created a ripple of interest. Among those on the verandas engaged, perhaps overtaxed, in the digestion of their dinners, not a few were slightly interested by what they saw. In a group of a dozen or more a gentleman behind a solitaire s.h.i.+rt-stud, worth a good year's salary for a Victoria Bank clerk seemed to be speaking the thoughts of the party, though his words came out chiefly as a form of soliloquy. He seemed to be taking a sort of admiring inventory of the gig and its occupants as it approached the landing wharf:

"Small sailor boy--standing in the bow--with a spear in his hand."

It was a boat-hook in the boy's hand, but it might have been a trident.

"He's real cunnin'--that boy--in his masquerade suit. Four sailors--also in masquerade costume. And they can make her hump up the river, sure's-yer-born. Now I wonder who those fellows are--in b.u.t.tons--with gold badges on their hats. Wonder what those badges might imply! Part of the masquerade, I guess. But stylish--very."

Then, turning to a friend, he said:

"Cha'ley, those people are yachting round here."

At this discovery the exhausted-looking refugee from overwork in some city addressed as "Cha'ley," whose face was lit up solely by a cigar, answered slowly but decisively:

"Looks like it--very."

Then followed a quick mental calculation in the head of the gentleman behind the solitaire, and, as the boat came alongside the landing, the oars being handled with trained accuracy, he said:

"I wonder how many of those paid men they have on board. I like it. I like the whole thing. I shall do it myself next summer. And right up to the handle. Cha'ley, bet you half a dollar that those are first-cla.s.s gentlemen and ladies down there, and we ought to go down and _re_ceive them."

"Why, certainly," said the other in grave, staccato tones, which seemed to deny the exhaustion of his appearance by indicating some internal strength. "James," he added in solemn self-reproach, "we should have been down--on the landing--to a.s.sist the ladies from their canoe."

As they left the veranda several ladies called after them:

"Mr. Cowper, we would be pleased to have you bring the ladies up."

Mr. Cowper bowed with gravity, but did not say anything, as he was preparing within him his form of self-introduction.

In a few moments Mr. Cowper and Mr. Withers met our party as they slowly meandered up the ascent toward the hotel. Mr. Cowper, hat in hand, gave them collectively a bow, which, if somewhat foreign in its nature, was not without dignity, and he addressed them with unmistakable hospitality, while Mr. Withers, by a flank movement, attacked the left wing of the party, where he conducted a little reception of his own.

Mr. Cowper said, "How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?"

Mrs. Dusenall bowed and smiled, and the others, wondering what was coming, bowed also as they caught Mr. Cowper's encompa.s.sing eye. "We regret," he said, looking toward Geoffrey, to whom he was more especially attracted on account of his cap-badge and greater stature.

"We regret, captain, that we did not notice your arrival in time to be on the landing to a.s.sist the ladies from your canoe."

Geoffrey's smile only indicated his gratification and had no reference to Mr. Cowper's new name for the yacht's gig.

"We are only guests in the hotel ourselves, but if we had known of your coming some of us certainly would have been down to _re_ceive you in the proper manner."

What "proper manner" of reception Mr. Cowper had in his head it is difficult to say. His words showed Mrs. Dusenall, however, that he was not the custom-house officer or the hotel-keeper, which relieved her of some anxiety lest she should make a mistake. At a slight pause in his flow of language she thanked him in her most rea.s.suring accents, and continued in those suave tones and with that perfect self-possession, with which the English d.u.c.h.ess, her head a little on one side and chin upraised, has been supposed carelessly to a.s.sert her person, crown, and dignity.

"I a.s.sure you," she said, "that we are only knocking about, as it were, quite informally, from place to place in the yacht."

"Quite informally," echoed Geoffrey, who was enjoying Mrs. Dusenall.

She added: "So, of course, we could not think of allowing you to give yourselves any trouble on our account."

In what pageantry Mrs. Dusenall proceeded when not traveling quite informally Mr. Cowper did not give himself the trouble to consider. The thought came to him that he might be entertaining an English d.u.c.h.ess unawares, but the succeeding consciousness that he could probably buy up this d.u.c.h.ess "and her whole masquerade" fortified him as with triple bra.s.s.

"Madam," he said, with that distinctness and intensity with which Americans convey the impression that they mean what they say, "if we have neglected you and your friends at first, we will be pleased if you will allow us now to try to make your visit attractive."

Mrs. Dusenall thought this was a.s.suming a heavy responsibility.

"If you will come up on the pe-az-a, there are a number of real nice ladies who would be most pleased to meet you."

Several of the party began to think that the cares of "knocking about quite informally" were about to commence. But as there was no escape, and all smiled pleasantly, and Mr. Cowper conversed as he and Mr.

Withers led them up to the "pe-az-a." He was gratified at the way they responded to his endeavors; and perhaps he was not without a latent wish to show his hotel friends how perfectly at home he was in "first-cla.s.s British society."

"There is always something going on here," he said; "and if there is nothing on just now we will get up something real pleasant--or my name's not Cowper."

This hint as to his ident.i.ty was not thrown away, and as it seemed more than likely that they were about to be entertained immediately by this gentleman behind the solitaire headlight, it occurred to Geoffrey that it would be as well for the party to know what his name was.

"Mr. Cowper, let me introduce you to Mrs. Dusenall."

This quickness on Geoffrey's part relieved Mr. Cowper from any difficulty in mentioning his own name. Mrs. Dusenall then introduced him in a general way to the remainder of the party. To Miss Dusenall it was impossible for him to do more than bow, as she was chilling in her demeanor. She had received, as has been hinted, that final distracting finis.h.i.+ng polish which an English school is expected to give, and she sought to be so entirely English as not to know what cosmopolitan courtesy was.

Margaret's face, however, gave Mr. Cowper encouragement and pleasure, and, as he shook hands warmly with her, something in her appearance gave a new spur to his hospitable intentions. The energy of a new nation seemed bottled up within him, as he said to Margaret:

"If I can't get up something here to make you enjoy yourself, why--why don't believe in me any more."

His evident but respectful admiration could only elicit a laugh and a blush. It was impossible to resist Mr. Cowper in his energetic intention to be host, and, in spite of his dazzling headlight, the national generosity and forgetfulness of self were so apparent in him that Margaret "took to him" in a way that mystified the other girls, who regarded the headlight only as a warning beacon placed there by Providence to preserve young ladies with an English boarding-school finish from undesirable a.s.sociations.

Mr. Cowper was what is called "self-made"--a word that in the States conveys with it no implied slur--for the simple reason that there is not the same necessity for it as in England. Speaking generally, an American has a generous consideration for women and a largeness of character, or rather an absence of smallness, not yet sufficiently recognized as national characteristics. He is generally the same man after "making his pile" as before--not always fully acquainted, perhaps, with social veneer, but kind, keen, and generous to a fault. It would be an insult to such a one to compare him with the "self-made" Englishman, whose rude pretension of superiority to those poorer than himself, truckling servility to rank and position, and ignorance of everything outside his own business render him very unlovely.

"Now," said Mr. Cowper, when he had been introduced to them all. "Now,"

he said, "we're all solid. We will just step up-stairs, if you please."