A Little Country Girl (Coolidge)/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
A WALK ON THE CLIFFS.
T is always an odd, unhomelike moment when one wakes up for the first time in a new place. Sleep is a separation between us and all that has gone before it. It takes a little while to recollect where we are and how we came there, and to get used to the strangeness which had partly worn away, but has come on again while we dreamed and forgot all about it.
Candace experienced this when she woke in the little blue room the morning after her arrival in Newport. She had gone to bed, by Mrs. Gray's advice, when their long talk about manners and customs was ended, and without going downstairs again.
"You are very tired, I can see," said Cousin Kate. "A long night's sleep will freshen you, and the world will look differently and a great deal pleasanter to-morrow."
Candace was glad to follow this counsel. She was tired, and she felt shy of Mr. Gray and the girls, and would rather put off meeting them again, she thought, till the morning. Ten hours of unbroken sleep rested her thoroughly, but she woke with a feeling of puzzled surprise at her surroundings, and for a few moments could not gather up her thoughts or quite recollect where she was. Then it all came back to her, and she was again conscious of the uncomfortable sensations of the night before.
She lay a little while thinking about it, and half wishing that she need not get up at all but just burrow under the blanket and hide herself, like a mouse or rabbit in his downy hole, till everybody had forgotten her blunders, and till she herself could forget them. But she said to herself bravely: "I won't be foolish. Cousin Kate is just lovely; she's promised to help me, and I'm sure she will. I will try not to mind the others; but, oh dear! I wish I were not so afraid of the girls."
She jumped out of bed resolutely and began to dress, taking her time about it, and stealing many glances out of the open window; for she knew it must be early, and as yet there were no sounds of life about the house. After her hair was curled, she stood for some time at the door of the closet, debating what dress she should put on.
The choice was limited. There were only a brown plaided gingham, a blue calico, and a thick white cambric to choose from. The latter seemed to her almost too nice to be worn in the morning. It was the first white dress she had ever been allowed to have, and Aunt Myra had said a good deal about the difficulty of getting it done up; so it seemed to Candace rather a sacred garment, which should be reserved for special state occasions.
After hesitating awhile she put on the brown gingham. It had a little ruffle basted round the neck. Candace tried the effect of a large blue bow, and then of a muslin one, very broad, with worked ends; but neither pleased her exactly. She recollected that Georgie and Gertrude had worn simple little ruches the night before, with no bows; and at last she wisely decided to fasten her ruffle with the little bar of silver which was her sole possession by way of ornament, for her mother's few trinkets had all been sold during her father's long illness. This pin had been a present from the worldly-minded Mrs. Buell, who so often furnished a text to Aunt Myra's homilies. She had one day heard Cannie say, when asked by one of the Buell daughters if she had any jewelry, "Are napkin-rings jewelry? I've got a napkin-ring." Mrs. Buell had laughed at the droll little speech, and repeated it as a good joke; but the next time she went to Hartford she bought the silver pin for Cannie, who was delighted, and held it as her choicest possession.
Her dressing finished, Candace went softly downstairs. She paused at the staircase window to look out. Cousin Kate's storm had not come after all. The day was brilliantly fair. Long fingers of sunshine were feeling their way through the tree-branches, seeking out shady corners and giving caressing touches to all growing things. A book lay on the window-bench. It was "A York and a Lancaster Rose," which little Marian had been reading the night before. It looked interesting, and, seeing by a glance at the tall clock in the hall below that it was but a little after seven, Candace settled herself for a long, comfortable reading before breakfast.
Mrs. Gray was the first of the family to appear. She swept rapidly downstairs in her pretty morning wrapper of pale pink, with a small muslin cap trimmed with ribbons of the same shade on her glossy black hair, and paused to give Cannie a rapid little kiss; but she looked preoccupied, and paid no further attention to her, beyond a kind word or two, till breakfast was over, the orders for the day given, half a dozen notes answered, and half a dozen persons seen on business. The girls seemed equally busy. Each had her own special little task to do. Georgie looked over the book-tables and writing-tables; sorted, tidied, put away the old newspapers; made sure that there was ink in the inkstands and pens and paper in plenty. After this was done, she set to work to water the plant boxes and stands in the hall and on the piazza. Gertrude fell upon a large box of freshly cut flowers, and began to arrange them in various bowls and vases. Little Marian had three cages of birds to attend to, which, as she was very particular about their baths and behavior, took a long time. Candace alone had nothing to do, and sat by, feeling idle and left out among the rest.
"I think I shall put you in charge of the piazza boxes," said Mrs. Gray, noticing her forlorn look as she came back from her interview with the fishmonger. "See, Cannie, the watering-pot is kept here, and the faucet of cold water is just there in the pantry. Would you like to take them as a little bit of daily regular work? They must be sprinkled every morning; and if the earth is dry they must be thoroughly watered, and all the seed-pods and yellow leaves and dead flowers must be picked off. Do you feel as if you could do it?"
"Oh, I should like to," said Cannie, brightening.
"Very well. Georgie has plenty to attend to without them, I imagine. She will be glad to be helped. Georgie, Cannie has agreed to take the care of all the outside flower-boxes in future. You needn't have them on your mind any more."
"That's nice," said Georgie, good-naturedly. "Then I will look after the plants on your balcony, mamma. Elizabeth doesn't half see to them."
"Oh, mightn't I do those too?" urged Cannie. "I wish you would let me."
"Well, you can if you like. They are all watered for to-day, though. You needn't begin till to-morrow."
"That is just as well," said Mrs. Gray; "for now that I am through with the orders and the tradesmen, I want Cannie to come up to the morning-room for a consultation. Georgie, you may come too. It's about your hair, Cannie. Those thick curls are very pretty, but they look a trifle old-fashioned, and I should think must be rather hot, like a little warm shawl always on your shoulders all summer long." She stroked the curls with her soft hand, as she spoke. "Should you dislike to have them knotted up, Cannie? You are quite old enough, I think."
"No, I shouldn't dislike it, but I don't know how to do my hair in any other way. I have always worn it like this."
"We'll teach you," cried Georgie and Gertrude, who had joined them while her mother was speaking. "Let us have a 'Council of Three' in the morning-room, and see what is most becoming to her."
So upstairs they went, and the girls pounced on Cannie, and put a towel over her shoulders, and brushed out her curls, and tried this way and that, while Mrs. Gray sat by and laughed. She would not interfere,—though Cannie at times resisted, and declared that they were pulling her hair and hurting her dreadfully,—for she was anxious that the cousins should grow intimate and familiar with each other. In fact, Cannie's shyness was quite shaken out of her for the moment; and before the experiments were ended, and it was decided that a little bang on the forehead, and what Marian called a "curly knot" behind, suited her best, she felt almost at home with Georgie and Gertrude.
"There," said Georgie, sticking in a last hair-pin, "come and see yourself; and if you don't confess that you are improved, you're a very ungrateful young person, and that is all I have to say."
Candace scarcely knew her own face when she was led up to the looking-glass. The light rings of hair lay very prettily on the forehead, the "curly knot" showed the shape of the small head; it all looked easy and natural, and as if it was meant to be so. She smiled involuntarily. The girl in the glass smiled back.
"Why, I look exactly like somebody else and not a bit like myself," she cried. "What would Aunt Myra say to me?"
"I am going out to do some errands," said Mrs. Gray; "will you come along, Cannie, and have a little drive?"
Mrs. Gray's errands seemed to be principally on behalf of her young companion. First they stopped at Seabury's, and after Mrs. Gray had selected a pair of "Newport ties" for herself, she ordered a similar pair for Candace. Then she said that while Cannie's shoe was off she might as well try on some boots, and Cannie found herself being fitted with a slender, shapely pair of black kid, which were not only prettier but more comfortable than the country-made ones which had made her foot look so clumsy. After that they stopped at a carpet and curtain place, where Cannie was much diverted at hearing the proprietor recommend tassels instead of plated rings on certain Holland shades, for the reason that "a tossel had more poetry about it somehow." Then, after a brief pause to order strawberries and fresh lettuce, the carriage was ordered to a milliner's.
"I want to get you a little hat of some sort," said Cousin Kate. "The one you wore yesterday is rather old for a girl of your age. I will retrim it some day, and it will do for picnics and sails, but you need more hats than one in this climate, which is fatal to ribbons and feathers, and takes the stiffness out of everything."
So a big, shady hat of dark red straw, with just a scarf of the same color twisted round the crown and a knowing little wing in front, was chosen; and then Mrs. Gray spied a smaller one of fine yellowish straw with a wreath of brown-centred daisies, and having popped it on Cannie's head for one moment, liked the effect, and ordered that too. Two new hats! It seemed to Cannie's modest ideas like the wildest extravagance; and after they returned to the coupé she found courage to say,—
"Cousin Kate, please, you mustn't buy me too many things."
"No, dear, I won't. I'll be careful," replied Mrs. Gray, smiling. Then, seeing that Cannie was in earnest, she added, more seriously: "My child, I've no wish to make you fine. I don't like finery for young girls; but one needs a good many things in a place like this, and I want to have you properly dressed in a simple way. It was agreed upon between Aunt Myra and myself that I should see to your summer wardrobe after you got here, because Newport is a better shopping-place than North Tolland; and while we are about it, we may as well get pretty things as ugly ones. It doesn't cost any more and is no more trouble, and I am sure you like them better, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, indeed," replied Cannie, quite relieved by this explanation. "I like pretty things ever so much—only—I thought—I was afraid—" She did not know how to finish her sentence.
"You were afraid I was ruining myself," asked her cousin, looking amused. "No, Cannie, I won't do that, I promise you; and in 
The Old Stone Mill.
It was a roofless circular tower, supported on round arches. — Page 73.
}}
return, you will please let me just settle about a few little necessary things for you, just as I should for Georgie and Gertrude, and say no more about it. Ah! there is the old Mill; you will like to see that. Stop a moment, John."
The coupé stopped accordingly by a small open square, planted with grass and a few trees, and intersected with paths. There was a music-stand in the centre, a statue on a pedestal; and close by them, rising from the greensward, appeared a small, curious structure of stone. It was a roofless circular tower, supported on round arches, which made a series of openings about its base. Cannie had never heard of the Stone Mill before, and she listened eagerly while Mrs. Gray explained that it had stood there since the earliest days of the Colony; that no one knew exactly how old it was, who built it, or for what purpose it was built; and that antiquarians were at variance upon these points, and had made all sorts of guesses about its origin. Some insisted that it was erected by the Norsemen, who were the first to discover the New England shores, long before the days of Columbus; others supposed it to be a fragment of an ancient church. Others again—and Mrs. Gray supposed that these last were probably nearest the truth—insisted that it was just what it seemed to be, a mill for grinding corn; and pointed out the fact that mills of very much the same shape still exist in old country neighborhoods in England. She also told Cannie that the mill used to be thickly overhung with ivies and Virginia creepers, and that it had never been so pretty and picturesque since the town authorities, under a mistaken apprehension that the roots of the vines were injuring the masonry, had torn them all away and left the ruin bare and unornamented, as she now saw it.
"Did you never read Longfellow's 'Skeleton in Armor'?" she asked; and when Cannie said no, she repeated part of the poem, and promised to find the rest for Cannie to read when they got home. Then they drove on; and Cannie's head was so full of "Lief the son of Arnulf," the "fearful guest," and the maiden whose heart under her loosened vest fluttered like doves "in their nest frighted," that she could hardly bring herself back to real life, even when Cousin Kate stopped at a famous dress-furnisher's in the Casino Block, and caused her to be measured for two dresses. One was of white woollen stuff, like those which Georgie and Gertrude had worn the night before; the other, a darker one, of cream-and-brown foulard, which Mrs. Gray explained would be nice for church and for driving and for cool days, of which there were always plenty in the Newport summer. She also bought a little brown parasol for Cannie, and a tightly fitting brown jacket to match the foulard; and altogether it was a most exciting and adventurous morning. Cannie, as she took off her hat at home and fluffed the newly constructed "bang" into shape with gentle finger-touches, asked herself if it could be really only a day and a half since she said good-by to Aunt Myra in North Tolland; and if in fact it were really herself, little Candace Arden, to whom these wonderful things belonged, or was it some one else? Perhaps it was all a dream, and she should presently wake up. "If it be I, as I believe it be," was the tenor of her thought, as of the old woman in the nursery rhyme; only Cannie had no little dog at hand to help her to a realization of her own identity.
Into Candace's bare little cradle in the hill country had been dropped one precious endowment. From both her father and her mother she inherited the love of reading. If old tales were true, and the gift-conferring fairies really came to stand round a baby's bed, each with a present in her hand, I think out of all that they could bestow I should choose for any child in whom I was interested, these two things,—a quick sense of humor and a love for books. There is nothing so lasting or so satisfying. Riches may take wing, beauty fade, grace vanish into fat, a sweet voice become harsh, rheumatism may cripple the fingers which played or painted so deftly,—with each and all of these delightful things time may play sad tricks; but to life's end the power to see the droll side of events is an unfailing cheer, and so long as eyes and ears last, books furnish a world of interest and escape whose doors stand always open. Winds may blow and skies may rain, fortune may prove unkind, days may be lonely and evenings dull; but for the true lover of reading there is always at hand this great company of companions and friends,—the wisest, the gentlest, the best,—never too tired or too busy to talk with him, ready at all moments to give their thought, their teaching, to help, instruct, and entertain. They never disappoint, they have no moods or tempers, they are always at home,—in all of which respects they differ from the rest of our acquaintance. If the man who invented sleep is to be blessed, thrice blessed be the man who invented printing!
There were not many books in the old yellow farm-house at North Tolland; but all that there were Cannie had read over and over again. Shakspeare she knew by heart, and "Paradise Lost," and Young's "Night Thoughts," and Pollock's "Course of Time." She had dipped into her dead father's theological library, and managed to extract some food for her imagination, even from such dry bones as "Paley's Evidences" and "Edwards on the Will and the Affections." Any book was better than no book to her. Aunt Myra, who discouraged the practice of reading for girls as unfitting them for any sort of useful work, used to declare that the very sight of a book made Cannie deaf and blind and dumb.
"You might as well be Laura what's-her-name and have done with it," she would tell her; "only I don't know where to look for a Dr. Howe or a Dr. anybody, who will come along and teach you to develop your faculties. I declare, I believe you'd rather read a dictionary any day than not read at all."
"I don't know but I would," said Cannie; but she said it to herself. She was rather afraid of Aunt Myra.
With this strong love of reading, the girl's delight may be imagined when Mrs. Gray, true to her promise, put into her hands a great illustrated volume of Longfellow, and left her free to dip and select and read as long as she chose. She curled herself up on the staircase bench, and was soon so deep in "The Skeleton in Armor" as to be quite oblivious to all that went on below. She did not hear the bell ring, she did not see various ladies shown into the drawing-room, or notice the hum of conversation that followed. She never lifted her eyes when Georgie Gray and a friend, who was no other than the identical Miss Joy of the "Eolus," stood at the staircase foot for some moments and held a whispered conversation; nor was she conscious of the side glances which the visitor now and then cast up toward the brown gingham skirt visible above. It was not till
"Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!"
ended the poem, that her dream ended, and she roused herself to find the callers gone and luncheon on the table.
Mrs. Gray was wont to say that they always had a meal at noon and a meal at night; and when her husband was at home, the first was called lunch and the second dinner, and when he was away the first was called dinner and the second supper; and that the principal difference between them was that at one there was soup and at the other there was not. Candace did not particularly care what the meal was called. Under any name she was glad of it, for sea-air and a morning drive had made her very hungry; and this time she was on her guard, watched carefully what others did, and made no serious blunders.
"What are you girls going to do this afternoon?" asked Mrs. Gray.
"Berry Joy has asked me to drive with her," replied Georgie; "she wants to take her friend over to the Fort to hear the band play. You have no objection, have you, mamma?"
"No; none at all. And you, Gertrude?"
"I haven't made any particular plan."
"Then suppose you and Candace take a walk on the Cliffs. I have to take Marian to the dentist; but Cannie has not seen the sea yet, except at a distance, and you both ought to have a good exercise in the fresh air, for I am almost sure it will rain by to-morrow. You might take her to the beach, Gertrude, and come home by Marine Avenue."
"Very well, mamma; I will, certainly," said Gertrude. But there was a lack of heartiness in her tone. Like most very young girls she had a strong sense of the observant eyes of Mrs. Grundy, and she did not at all approve of the brown gingham. "I wonder why mamma can't wait till she has made Cannie look like other people," she was saying to herself.
There was no help for it, however. None of Mrs. Gray's children ever thought of disputing her arrangements for a moment; so the two girls set forth, Cannie in the despised gingham, and Gertrude in a closely fitting suit of blue serge, with a large hat of the same blue, which stood out like a frame round the delicate oval of her face, and set off the feathery light hair to perfection.
Their way for a little distance was down a sort of country lane, which was the short cut to the Cliffs. It ended in a smooth greensward at the top of a wall of broken rocks; and, standing on the edge, Cannie called out, "Oh!" with a sense of sudden surprise and freedom.
Before her was a bay of the softest blue, with here and there a line of white surf, where long rollers were sweeping in toward the distant beach. Opposite, stretched a point of land rising into a low hill, which shone in the yellow afternoon sun; and from its end the unbroken sea stretched away into a lovely distance, whose color was like that of an opal, and which had no boundary but a mysterious dim line of faintly tinted sky. Sails shone against the moving water; gulls were dipping and diving; a flock of wild-ducks with glossy black heads swam a little away out from the shore. Beyond the point which made the other arm of the little bay rose an island, ramparted by rocks, over which the surf could be seen to break with an occasional toss of spray. There was a delicious smell of soft salty freshness, and something besides,—a kind of perfume which Candace could not understand or name.
"Oh, what is it; what can it be?" she said.
"What?"
"The smell. It is like flowers. Oh, there it is again!"
"Mamma makes believe that it is the Spice Islands," answered Gertrude, indifferently, "or else Madeira. You know there is nothing between us and the coast of Africa except islands."
"Really and truly? How wonderful!"
"Well, I don't see how it is so very wonderful. It just happens so. I suppose there are plenty of sea-side places where they can say the same thing."
"Perhaps,—but I never saw any sea-coast but this. It is all new to me."
"I suppose so," responded Gertrude, with a little yawn. She looked to right and to left, fearing that some acquaintance might be coming to see her in company with this rather shabby little companion. "Would you like to walk up the Cliffs a little way, or shall we go down to the beach?" she asked.
"Oh, let us just go as far as that point," said Candace, indicating where, to the right, past a turnstile, a smooth gravel path wound its way between the beautifully kept borders of grass. The path ran on the very edge of the Cliff, and the outer turf dipped at a steep incline to where the sharp rock ran down perpendicularly, but to the very verge it was as fine and as perfectly cut as anywhere else. Candace wondered who held the gardeners and kept them safe while they shaved the grass so smoothly in this dangerous spot, but she did not like to ask. Gertrude's indifferent manner drove her in upon herself and made her shy.
A hundred feet and more below them the sea was washing into innumerable rocky fissures with a hollow booming sound. The cliff-line was broken into all sorts of bold forms,—buttresses and parapets and sharp inclines, with here and there a shallow cave or a bit of shingly beach. Every moment the color of the water seemed to change, and the soft duns and purples of the horizon line to grow more intense. Candace had no eyes but for the sea. She scarcely noticed the handsome houses on her right hand, each standing in its wide lawn, with shrubberies and beds of dazzling flowers. Gertrude, on the contrary, scarcely looked at the sea. It was an old story to her; and she was much more interested in trying to make out people she knew at the windows of the houses they passed, or on their piazzas, and in speculating about the carriages which could be seen moving on the distant road.
"How good it is of the people who own the places to let everybody go through them!" exclaimed Candace, when it was explained to her that the Cliff walk was a public one.
"Oh, they can't help themselves. There is a right of way all round the Island, and nobody would be allowed to close it. Some owners grumble and don't like it a bit; but mamma says it is one of the best things in Newport, and that it would be a great injury to the place to have it taken away. The Cliff walk is very celebrated, you know. Lots of people have written things about it."
"Oh, I should think they would. It is the most beautiful place I ever saw."
"You haven't seen many places, have you?" observed Gertrude, rather impolitely.
"Oh no, I never saw anything but North Tolland till I came to Newport."
"Then you can't judge."
They had now turned, and were walking eastward toward the beach. Its line of breaking surf could be distinctly seen now. Carriages and people on horseback were driving or riding along the sands, and groups of black dots were discernible, which were other people on foot.
"There is Pulpit Rock," said Gertrude, stopping where a shelving path slanted down toward a great square mass of stone, which was surrounded on three sides by water. "Would you like to go down and sit on top for a little while? I am rather tired."
"Oh, I should like to so much."
Down they scrambled accordingly, and in another moment were on top of the big rock. It was almost as good as being at sea; for when they turned their backs to the shore nothing could be seen but water and sails and flying birds, and nothing heard but the incessant plash and dash of the waves below.
"Oh, how perfectly splendid!" cried Cannie. "I should think you would come here every day, Gertrude."
"Yes, that's what people always say when they first come," said the experienced Gertrude. "But I assure you we don't come every day, and we don't want to. Why, sometimes last summer I didn't see the Cliffs for weeks and weeks together. It's nice enough now when there are not many people here; but after the season begins and the crowd, it isn't nice at all. You see all sorts of people that you don't know, and—and—well—it isn't pleasant."
"I can't think what you mean," declared Cannie, opening her eyes with amazement. "I'd just as soon there were twenty people on this rock, if I needn't look at them and they didn't talk to me. The sea would be just the same."
"You'll feel differently when you've been in Newport awhile. It's not at all the fashion to walk on the Cliffs now except on Sunday, and not at this end of them even then. A great many people won't bathe, either,—they say it has grown so common. Why, it used to be the thing to walk down here,—all the nicest people did it; and now you never see anybody below Narragansett Avenue except ladies'-maids and butlers, and people who are boarding at the hotels and don't know any better."
"How funny it seems!" remarked Candace, half to herself, with her eyes on the distance, which was rapidly closing in with mist.
"What is funny?"
"Oh, I was—I was only thinking how funny it is that there should be a fashion about coming down to such a beautiful place as this."
"I don't see how it is funny."
"Yes," persisted Candace, who, for all her shyness, had ideas and opinions of her own; "because the Cliffs are so old and have always been here, and I suppose some of the people who make it the fashion not to walk upon them have only just come to Newport."
"I really think you are the queerest girl I ever saw," said Gertrude.
A long silence ensued. Each of the two girls was thinking her own thoughts. The thickening on the horizon meanwhile was increasing. Thin films of vapor began to blow across the sky. The wind stirred and grew chill; the surf on the beach broke with a low roar which had a menacing sound. Suddenly a wall of mist rose and rolled rapidly inland, blotting out all the blue and the smile of sky and sea.
"Gracious! here's the fog," cried Gertrude, "and I do believe it's going to rain. We must hurry home. I rather think mamma's storm is coming, after all."