The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories

It was a profoundly hot August day when Andrew left the steamboat and actually stood upon Newport soil.  More properly, he stood upon a plank wharf, and was not impressed with the dock.  But as the omnibus rolled through the town his heart began to swell, his rather dull eyes to glow.  The hour was two, and the city asleep under its ivy and flowers.  After New York, it seemed deliciously quiet, and old, and aristocratic.  The pounding of the horses’ hoofs, the voices of the people in the omnibus, were desecrating.  He had glimpses of long avenues, dark, green, dim; a flash of villa top or imposing gateway behind the stately trees.  He felt that he was in paradise.

He was in a mood to admire the hotel, plain and unpretending structure as it was; it was so old and still and highly respectable.  He descended from the omnibus nervously and went into the office.  A clerk handed him a pen, and he registered his name in a clerkly hand, “A.  Armstrong Webb.”  He had decided to acknowledge his debt to his uncle and add a cubit to his stature at the same time.  The clerk wheeled the book round, glanced indifferently at the name, and handed a key to a bell-boy.  Webb, conscious of a faint chill, followed the boy up-stairs.  The room to which he was conducted was an ordinary one overlooking the area.  He had been treated as any commonplace and unknown traveller would be.  The thought increased the chill; then he philosophically concluded that a nobleman travelling incognito would be treated in the same way, and went down-stairs to the dining-room.  There he was somewhat surprised to find that dinner was being served instead of luncheon.  He had supposed that dinner in a Newport hotel would be served at eight o’clock.

After dinner he went out to the veranda, sat himself on one of the chairs by the railing, and smoked an expensive cigar.  He was beginning to feel strangely lonely.  There seemed to be very few people in the hotel, and he experienced his first pang of helplessness, of doubt.  He had supposed that the hotel would be full of great people.  As he glanced down the avenue, those big houses seemed like tombs, buried, themselves, under a rank growth of foliage.  And it was so wondrous quiet!

His cigar cheered him somewhat, and he sauntered back to the office and entered into conversation with the clerk, a good-humored little Englishman with cheeks like his own apples.  The clerk knew at a glance that the stranger was neither a “swell” nor a frequenter of Newport; but he liked his manly appearance, and readily met his advances.  To his dismay, Webb learned that the “swells” no longer went to the hotels; or, if obliged to do so for a short period, secluded themselves in their rooms.  They lived in cottages.  Oh yes! all those fine houses were called cottages.  It was a sort of fad—­American modesty, the clerk supposed.  There was not much run of any sort at the hotel until the fifteenth, when a good many tourists came.  Oh yes! there were some people there, mostly old ones, who had come every season for many years, he believed.  Rather depressing parties, these; they looked so old-fashioned, and didn’t do much to brighten up things.

Webb, with growing dejection, left the hotel and strolled up the avenue.  There his spirits revived.  The avenue was so beautiful, so gloomy, so old!  He drew in deep inhalations of its unmistakably aristocratic atmosphere.  He felt its subtle possessing influence.  Once more his imagination awakened.  He leaned on a Gothic gateway and gazed upon a superb Queen Anne cottage with Tudor towers.  Incongruities in architecture mattered nothing to him.  He precipitated his astral part through the massive door and wandered, with ponderous, thoughtful tread, over the deep carpets of the drawing-rooms and corridors.  He drank tea on the back veranda with languid dames and with men who had never stood at desks.  He threw himself into an arm-chair and listened to a slim-waisted smooth-haired girl coquetting with the piano.  He sat with the haughty chatelaine and talked of—­there his imagination failed him.  He hardly knew what these people talked of, although he had read many society novels.  As far as his memory served him, they talked of nothing in particular.  He wandered down the avenue, dreaming his dream at many gate-posts.  He saw no one, but thereby was the illusion deepened.  Newport for the hour was his.

He returned to the hotel veranda, lit another cigar, and was about to meditate upon some plan of campaign, when suddenly an odd and delightful thing happened.  It was four-and-thirty of the clock.  As if to the ringing of a bell and the rising of a curtain, Bellevue Avenue became suddenly alive with carriages.  The big gates seemed to yawn simultaneously and discharge their expensive freight.  It was as if these actors in the Newport drama would lose their weekly salary did they step on the boards a moment too late.  The avenue, with its gay frocks and parasols, was like a long flower-bed in spring.  Webb’s cigar went out.  He leaned forward eagerly, straining his eyes.

In some of the superb traps were decrepit old dowagers wagging their feeble heads, wondering, perhaps, how much longer their millions would keep them alive.  Sometimes their young heirs were with them, patient and placid.  Others were pitifully alone.  Several men were on horseback, riding in the agonized fashion of the day.  There were carriages full of girls with complexions of ivory and claret, air of ineffable daintiness.  Now and then a victoria would roll by in which women lolled, heavily veiled with crape.  Webb wondered if they really could sorrow like common folks.  Mingling with the superb turnouts were barouches unmistakably hired, occupied by people dressed with a certain cheap smartness.  Here and there a girl, probably of the people, cantered half defiantly down the line, a sailor-hat on her head, her jacket open over a shirt and “four-in-hand.”  Once a yoke of oxen, driven by a bareheaded maid, straggled into the throng.

The avenue before the hotel became deserted once more.  The upper end was blocked with carriages, all apparently bent in the same direction.  Andrew ran down the steps, half inclined to follow, half fearing they would never return.  A number of open hacks stood before the hotel.  A driver immediately approached Andrew.

“Like a drive, sir?”

“Yes,” said Webb.  “Go where the others are going.”

“Certainly, sir.  And, if you be a stranger, I can tell you most of the names.”

Andrew could have tipped him on the spot.  He should be able to identify those people at last!  He felt that he had advanced another step!

“We’ll drive slow and meet them on their return,” said the driver.  He indicated with a gesture of contempt a passing carriage.

“You see them, sir?  They be people that comes to the hotels and goes away and talks about spending the summer in Newport.  But any one could tell that they’re just hotel people, and that the hack is hired.  They don’t deceive nobody here.”

The words gave Andrew a hint for which he was thankful.  He understood that he must not stay at the hotel.  Where should he go, however?  He must take a “cottage,” he supposed.

They rolled down a thick-leaved avenue and out over the stubby sand-hills by the sea.  Here and there a large mansion crowned the heights, and Andrew was glad to see the traditional cottage in full relief.  He paid it scant attention, however.  The procession of carriages had already turned, and his faithful guide uttered many a name which sounded like old sweet music in his ears.  Some of the younger faces were unfamiliar; but they, too, bore names that the newspapers had made famous.

“Now look with all your eyes,” cried the driver, suddenly.  “Here’s Mrs. Johnny Belhaven.  She’s worth more millions than all the rest put together, and is an A1 whip.”

A plump but distinguished-looking woman bore down on them in what appeared to be a chariot.  Andrew had never seen anything so high on wheels before.  Mrs. Belhaven looked down upon her “Order” as from a throne, and wore a slightly supercilious expression.

“And there’s Ward McAllister,” continued the driver, excitedly; “him as is the leader of the Four Hundred, you know.”

Andrew almost raised himself from his seat.  He stared with bulging eyes at the tired carelessly dressed elderly man with whom he had been intimate so many years.

He returned to the hotel.  His spirits were normal again.  He had taken his part in a fragment of the daily life of Newport.  As he passed through the office on his way to the elevator, the clerk beckoned to him.

“As you seem a stranger, sir,” he said, apologetically, “I thought I would introduce you to Mr. Chapman.  He’s the correspondent of several New York papers, and could tell you how to amuse yourself.”

A short thick-set amiable young man shook Andrew’s hand heartily.  Mr. Chapman was not the sort of person Andrew had gone to Newport to meet, but he was glad of any friendship, temporarily.

The two young men went out to the veranda.  Andrew proffered his new cigar-case.  The other accepted gratefully.  He was the free-lance correspondent of several New York weekly papers, and his salary was not large.  He tipped his chair back, put his feet on the railing, and confided to Webb that he hated Newport.

“I wouldn’t have come here this summer if I could have got out of it,” he said, gloomily.  “It’s my third year, and the place gets worse every season.  These people are so stuck-up there’s no approaching them for news.  Even Lancaster, who has a sort of entrée because he is connected with a swagger family, admits that it’s as much as his life is worth to get anything out of them.  He’s the correspondent of the New York Eye.  What’s worse, they don’t do anything.  Here it is the third of August, and not a ball has been given—­just little things among themselves that you can’t get at.  It’s enough to drive a fellow to drink.  I’ve faked till my poor imagination is worn to a thread; the papers have to have news.  But I’ve done one big thing this summer,—­a corking beat.  Did you notice half-way down the avenue a new house surrounded by a big stone wall?  That’s the new Belhaven house.  They’d sworn that no reporter should so much as pass the gates, no paper should ever show an eager world the interior of that marble mausoleum.  The newspapers were wild.  Even Lancaster had no show.  I was bound that I’d get into that house, if I had to go as a burglar.  And I did, but not that way.  I bribed their butcher to let me dress up as his boy; took a camera, and photographed the house and grounds from the seclusion of the meat-wagon.  I flirted with the cook and got her to show me the drawing-rooms.  It was early, and the family wasn’t up.  I dodged the butler and took snap-shots.  The other newspaper men were ready to brain me.  I felt sorry for some of them, but I had joy over Lancaster.  He’d bribed the caterer and florist to keep their best bits of news for him.  A low trick that; not but what I’d do it myself if I had his salary.  He got a scoop last year, and you couldn’t speak to him for a month after.  Mrs. Foster,—­she’s one of the biggest guns, you know, a regular cannon,—­refurnished her house last summer, and all the New York papers wanted photographs.  She went cranky, and said they shouldn’t have them.  Wouldn’t even listen to Lancaster’s pleadings.  But he hadn’t jollied the butler for nothing.  She didn’t stop here last summer—­only came down every two weeks and rearranged every stick of the furniture.  The butler was nearly distracted.  It was as much as his place was worth to have her find any of the chairs out of place, and the rooms had to be swept.  So he hit on a plan.  He bought a camera and photographed the rooms every time Mrs. Foster came down.  One day he met Lancaster on the avenue and confided his method of keeping up with the old lady.  You may be sure Lancaster was not long getting a set of those photos.  It cost the newspaper a pot of money, for the butler was no fool.  But there they were next Sunday.  And Mrs. Foster doesn’t know to this day how it was done.”

Webb listened with mingled amusement and dismay.  He was slowly beginning to realize the determined segregation, from the common herd, of these people, to whom he had come so confidently to offer homage.  He changed the subject.

“I don’t want to stay here, don’t you know,” he said, glancing scornfully over his shoulder at the hotel which in its day had housed the most distinguished in the land.  “What would you advise?  Take a cottage?”

“Take a cottage!” Mr. Chapman fairly gasped.  “Are you a millionaire in disguise?  If you were, I don’t believe you could get one.  The swells shut up theirs when they don’t come, or let them to their friends.  The others are mostly taken year after year by the same people.  No; I’ll tell you what you want—­a bachelor’s apartment.  They are not so easy to get either, but I happen to know of one.  It was rented four years ago by Jack Delancy, but he blew in most of his money, and then tried to recuperate on cordage.  The bottom fell out of that, and now goodness knows where he is.  At all events, his apartment is to let.  Suppose we go now and see it.  There’s no time to lose.”

Andrew assented willingly, profoundly thankful that he had met Mr. Chapman.  The apartment was near the hotel.  They found it still vacant, furnished with a certain bold distinction.  The rent was high, but Andrew stifled the economic promptings of his nature, and manfully signed a check.  That night there was nothing to be seen in Newport, not even a moon.  The city was like a necropolis.  Andrew gratefully employed his leisure hunting for servants.  The following day he was comfortably installed and had invited the fortunate Mr. Chapman to dinner.  He found that gentleman next morning on the beach, taking snap-shots at the bathers.

“This sort of thing goes,” Chapman said, “although these people are just plain tourists.  I label them ‘the beautiful Miss Brown,’ or ’the famous Miss Jones,’ and the average reader swallows it, to say nothing of the fact that it makes the paper look well.  The swells won’t go in with the common herd, and want the ocean fenced in too, as it were.  There are some of them over there in their carriages, taking a languid interest in the scene because they’ve nothing better to do.  But they’d no more think of getting out and sitting on this balcony, as they do at Narragansett, than they’d ride in a street-car.  Want to go up to the Casino and see the stage go off?  That’s one of the sights.”

Andrew had spent a half-hour the evening before gazing at the graceful brown building which had long been a part of his dreams.  He welcomed the prospect of seeing a phase of its brilliant life.

They reached the Casino a few minutes before the coach started.  A large round-shouldered man, with face and frame of phlegmatic mould, occupied the seat and swung his whip with a bored and absent air.  Two or three girls, clad in apotheosized organdie, and close hats, were already on top of the coach.  An elderly beau was assiduously attending upon a young woman who was about to mount the ladder.  She was a plain girl, with an air of refined health, and simply clad in white.

“She’s worth sixteen million dollars in her own right,” said Chapman, with a groan.

On the sidewalk, between the Casino and the coach, were two groups of girls.  One group gazed up at their friends on the coach, wishing them good-fortune; the other gazed upon the first, eagerly and enviously.  Andrew looked from one to the other.  The girls who talked to those on the coach wore organdie frocks of simple but marvellous construction.  Shading their young pellucid eyes, their bare polished brows, were large Leghorn hats covered with expensive feathers or flowers.  Air, carriage, complexion, manner, each was a part of the unmistakable uniform of the New York girl of fashion.  But the others?  Andrew put the question to Chapman.

“Oh, they’re natives.  We call them that to distinguish them from the cottagers.  They get close whenever they get a chance, and copy the cottagers’ clothes and manners.  But it doesn’t take a magnifying-glass to see the difference.”

Andrew looked with a pity he did not admit was fellow-feeling at the pretty girls with their bright complexions, their merely stylish clothes—­which reminded him of Polly’s—­the inferior feathers in their chip hats.  The sharp contrast between the two groups of girls was almost painful.

“I’ve got to leave you,” said Chapman; “but I’ll see you later.  Take care of yourself.”

The horn tooted, the whip cracked, the coach started.  The men on the club balcony above the Casino watched it lazily.  The street between the coach and the green wall opposite had been blocked with carriages that now rolled away.

Webb turned his attention to the group of cottagers.  One of the girls wore a yellow organdie trimmed with black velvet ribbons, a large Leghorn covered with yellow feathers and black velvet.  She was not pretty, but she had “an air,” and that was supremest beauty in Andrew’s eyes.  Another was in lilac, another in pink.  Each had the same sleek brown hair, the same ivory complexion.  In attendance was a tall clumsily built but very imposing young man with sleepy blue eyes and a mighty mustache.  The girls paid him marked attention.

They chatted for a few moments, then walked through the entrance of the Casino, over the lawn, towards the lower balcony of the horseshoe surrounding it.  Andrew followed, fascinated.  The young man in attendance walked after the manner of his kind, and Andrew, unconsciously imitating him, ascended the steps, seated himself with an air of elaborate indifference opposite the party in the narrow semicircle, and composed his face into an expression of blank abstraction.  His trouble was wasted:  they did not see him.  They had an air of seeing no one in the world but their kind.  One of the girls, to Andrew’s horror, crossed her knees and swung her foot airily.  The young man sank into a slouching position.  Another girl joined the group, but he did not rise when introduced, nor offer to get her a chair.  She was obliged to perform that office, at some difficulty, for herself.

The band began to play.  Andrew leaned forward, gazing at the floor, intent upon hearing these people actually converse.  But their talk only came to him in snatches between the rise and fall of the music.  Like many other New-Yorkers, he had a deaf ear.

“My things disappear so”—­(from the yellow girl) ...  “I suspect my maid wears them….  Don’t really know what I have….  Don’t dare say anything.”  This was said with a languid drawl which Andrew thought delicious.

All laughed.

“Shall you go to Paris this year?”

“I don’t know … till time comes….  Then we keep four servants up all night packing….  Must have some new gowns….  You know how you have to talk to Ducet and Paquin yourself.”

The young man went to sleep.  The girls put their heads together and whispered.  After a time they arose with a little capricious air, which completed Andrew’s subjugation, and strolled away.