I
On a January evening of the early seventies Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York
Though there was already talk of the erection in remote metropolitan distances above the Forties of a new Opera House which should compete in costliness and splendour with those of the great European capitals the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old Academy Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient and thus keeping out the new people whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to and the sentimental clung to it for its historic associations and the musical for its excellent acoustics always so problematic a quality in halls built for the hearing of music
It was Madame Nilssons first appearance that winter and what the daily press had already learned to describe as an exceptionally brilliant audience had gathered to hear her transported through the slippery snowy streets in private broughams in the spacious family landau or in the humbler but more convenient Brown coupe To come to the Opera in a Brown coupe was almost as honourable a way of arriving as in ones own carriage and departure by the same means had the immense advantage of enabling one with a playful allusion to democratic principles to scramble into the first Brown conveyance in the line instead of waiting till the coldandgin congested nose of ones own coachman gleamed under the portico of the Academy It was one of the great liverystablemans most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it
When Newland Archer opened the door at the back of the club box the curtain had just gone up on the garden scene There was no reason why the young man should not have come earlier for he had dined at seven alone with his mother and sister and had lingered afterward over a cigar in the Gothic library with glazed blackwalnut bookcases and finialtopped chairs which was the only room in the house where Mrs Archer allowed smoking But in the first place New York was a metropolis and perfectly aware that in metropolises it was not the thing to arrive early at the opera and what was or was not the thing played a part as important in Newland Archers New York as the inscrutable totem terrors that had ruled the destinies of his forefathers thousands of years ago
The second reason for his delay was a personal one He had dawdled over his cigar because he was at heart a dilettante and thinking over a pleasure to come often gave him a subtler satisfaction than its realisation This was especially the case when the pleasure was a delicate one as his pleasures mostly were and on this occasion the moment he looked forward to was so rare and exquisite in quality that—well if he had timed his arrival in accord with the prima donnas stagemanager he could not have entered the Academy at a more significant moment than just as she was singing He loves me—he loves me not—HE LOVES ME— and sprinkling the falling daisy petals with notes as clear as dew
She sang of course Mama and not he loves me since an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of Englishspeaking audiences This seemed as natural to Newland Archer as all the other conventions on which his life was moulded such as the duty of using two silverbacked brushes with his monogram in blue enamel to part his hair and of never appearing in society without a flower preferably a gardenia in his buttonhole
Mama non mama the prima donna sang and Mama with a final burst of love triumphant as she pressed the dishevelled daisy to her lips and lifted her large eyes to the sophisticated countenance of the little brown FaustCapoul who was vainly trying in a tight purple velvet doublet and plumed cap to look as pure and true as his artless victim
Newland Archer leaning against the wall at the back of the club box turned his eyes from the stage and scanned the opposite side of the house Directly facing him was the box of old Mrs Manson Mingott whose monstrous obesity had long since made it impossible for her to attend the Opera but who was always represented on fashionable nights by some of the younger members of the family On this occasion the front of the box was filled by her daughterinlaw Mrs Lovell Mingott and her daughter Mrs Welland and slightly withdrawn behind these brocaded matrons sat a young girl in white with eyes ecstatically fixed on the stagelovers As Madame Nilssons Mama thrilled out above the silent house the boxes always stopped talking during the Daisy Song a warm pink mounted to the girls cheek mantled her brow to the roots of her fair braids and suffused the young slope of her breast to the line where it met a modest tulle tucker fastened with a single gardenia She dropped her eyes to the immense bouquet of liliesofthevalley on her knee and Newland Archer saw her whitegloved fingertips touch the flowers softly He drew a breath of satisfied vanity and his eyes returned to the stage
No expense had been spared on the setting which was acknowledged to be very beautiful even by people who shared his acquaintance with the Opera houses of Paris and Vienna The foreground to the footlights was covered with emerald green cloth In the middle distance symmetrical mounds of woolly green moss bounded by croquet hoops formed the base of shrubs shaped like orangetrees but studded with large pink and red roses Gigantic pansies considerably larger than the roses and closely resembling the floral penwipers made by female parishioners for fashionable clergymen sprang from the moss beneath the rosetrees and here and there a daisy grafted on a rosebranch flowered with a luxuriance prophetic of Mr Luther Burbanks faroff prodigies
In the centre of this enchanted garden Madame Nilsson in white cashmere slashed with pale blue satin a reticule dangling from a blue girdle and large yellow braids carefully disposed on each side of her muslin chemisette listened with downcast eyes to M Capouls impassioned wooing and affected a guileless incomprehension of his designs whenever by word or glance he persuasively indicated the ground floor window of the neat brick villa projecting obliquely from the right wing
The darling thought Newland Archer his glance flitting back to the young girl with the liliesofthevalley She doesnt even guess what its all about And he contemplated her absorbed young face with a thrill of possessorship in which pride in his own masculine initiation was mingled with a tender reverence for her abysmal purity Well read Faust together by the Italian lakes he thought somewhat hazily confusing the scene of his projected honeymoon with the masterpieces of literature which it would be his manly privilege to reveal to his bride It was only that afternoon that May Welland had let him guess that she cared New Yorks consecrated phrase of maiden avowal and already his imagination leaping ahead of the engagement ring the betrothal kiss and the march from Lohengrin pictured her at his side in some scene of old European witchery
He did not in the least wish the future Mrs Newland Archer to be a simpleton He meant her thanks to his enlightening companionship to develop a social tact and readiness of wit enabling her to hold her own with the most popular married women of the younger set in which it was the recognised custom to attract masculine homage while playfully discouraging it If he had probed to the bottom of his vanity as he sometimes nearly did he would have found there the wish that his wife should be as worldlywise and as eager to please as the married lady whose charms had held his fancy through two mildly agitated years without of course any hint of the frailty which had so nearly marred that unhappy beings life and had disarranged his own plans for a whole winter
How this miracle of fire and ice was to be created and to sustain itself in a harsh world he had never taken the time to think out but he was content to hold his view without analysing it since he knew it was that of all the carefullybrushed whitewaistcoated buttonholeflowered gentlemen who succeeded each other in the club box exchanged friendly greetings with him and turned their operaglasses critically on the circle of ladies who were the product of the system In matters intellectual and artistic Newland Archer felt himself distinctly the superior of these chosen specimens of old New York gentility he had probably read more thought more and even seen a good deal more of the world than any other man of the number Singly they betrayed their inferiority but grouped together they represented New York and the habit of masculine solidarity made him accept their doctrine on all the issues called moral He instinctively felt that in this respect it would be troublesome—and also rather bad form—to strike out for himself
Well—upon my soul exclaimed Lawrence Lefferts turning his operaglass abruptly away from the stage Lawrence Lefferts was on the whole the foremost authority on form in New York He had probably devoted more time than any one else to the study of this intricate and fascinating question but study alone could not account for his complete and easy competence One had only to look at him from the slant of his bald forehead and the curve of his beautiful fair moustache to the long patentleather feet at the other end of his lean and elegant person to feel that the knowledge of form must be congenital in any one who knew how to wear such good clothes so carelessly and carry such height with so much lounging grace As a young admirer had once said of him If anybody can tell a fellow just when to wear a black tie with evening clothes and when not to its Larry Lefferts And on the question of pumps versus patentleather Oxfords his authority had never been disputed
My God he said and silently handed his glass to old Sillerton Jackson
Newland Archer following Leffertss glance saw with surprise that his exclamation had been occasioned by the entry of a new figure into old Mrs Mingotts box It was that of a slim young woman a little less tall than May Welland with brown hair growing in close curls about her temples and held in place by a narrow band of diamonds The suggestion of this headdress which gave her what was then called a Josephine look was carried out in the cut of the dark blue velvet gown rather theatrically caught up under her bosom by a girdle with a large oldfashioned clasp The wearer of this unusual dress who seemed quite unconscious of the attention it was attracting stood a moment in the centre of the box discussing with Mrs Welland the propriety of taking the latters place in the front righthand corner then she yielded with a slight smile and seated herself in line with Mrs Wellands sisterinlaw Mrs Lovell Mingott who was installed in the opposite corner
Mr Sillerton Jackson had returned the operaglass to Lawrence Lefferts The whole of the club turned instinctively waiting to hear what the old man had to say for old Mr Jackson was as great an authority on family as Lawrence Lefferts was on form He knew all the ramifications of New Yorks cousinships and could not only elucidate such complicated questions as that of the connection between the Mingotts through the Thorleys with the Dallases of South Carolina and that of the relationship of the elder branch of Philadelphia Thorleys to the Albany Chiverses on no account to be confused with the Manson Chiverses of University Place but could also enumerate the leading characteristics of each family as for instance the fabulous stinginess of the younger lines of Leffertses the Long Island ones or the fatal tendency of the Rushworths to make foolish matches or the insanity recurring in every second generation of the Albany Chiverses with whom their New York cousins had always refused to intermarry—with the disastrous exception of poor Medora Manson who as everybody knew but then her mother was a Rushworth
In addition to this forest of family trees Mr Sillerton Jackson carried between his narrow hollow temples and under his soft thatch of silver hair a register of most of the scandals and mysteries that had smouldered under the unruffled surface of New York society within the last fifty years So far indeed did his information extend and so acutely retentive was his memory that he was supposed to be the only man who could have told you who Julius Beaufort the banker really was and what had become of handsome Bob Spicer old Mrs Manson Mingotts father who had disappeared so mysteriously with a large sum of trust money less than a year after his marriage on the very day that a beautiful Spanish dancer who had been delighting thronged audiences in the old Operahouse on the Battery had taken ship for Cuba But these mysteries and many others were closely locked in Mr Jacksons breast for not only did his keen sense of honour forbid his repeating anything privately imparted but he was fully aware that his reputation for discretion increased his opportunities of finding out what he wanted to know
The club box therefore waited in visible suspense while Mr Sillerton Jackson handed back Lawrence Leffertss operaglass For a moment he silently scrutinised the attentive group out of his filmy blue eyes overhung by old veined lids then he gave his moustache a thoughtful twist and said simply I didnt think the Mingotts would have tried it on
II
Newland Archer during this brief episode had been thrown into a strange state of embarrassment
It was annoying that the box which was thus attracting the undivided attention of masculine New York should be that in which his betrothed was seated between her mother and aunt and for a moment he could not identify the lady in the Empire dress nor imagine why her presence created such excitement among the initiated Then light dawned on him and with it came a momentary rush of indignation No indeed no one would have thought the Mingotts would have tried it on
But they had they undoubtedly had for the lowtoned comments behind him left no doubt in Archers mind that the young woman was May Wellands cousin the cousin always referred to in the family as poor Ellen Olenska Archer knew that she had suddenly arrived from Europe a day or two previously he had even heard from Miss Welland not disapprovingly that she had been to see poor Ellen who was staying with old Mrs Mingott Archer entirely approved of family solidarity and one of the qualities he most admired in the Mingotts was their resolute championship of the few black sheep that their blameless stock had produced There was nothing mean or ungenerous in the young mans heart and he was glad that his future wife should not be restrained by false prudery from being kind in private to her unhappy cousin but to receive Countess Olenska in the family circle was a different thing from producing her in public at the Opera of all places and in the very box with the young girl whose engagement to him Newland Archer was to be announced within a few weeks No he felt as old Sillerton Jackson felt he did not think the Mingotts would have tried it on
He knew of course that whatever man dared within Fifth Avenues limits that old Mrs Manson Mingott the Matriarch of the line would dare He had always admired the high and mighty old lady who in spite of having been only Catherine Spicer of Staten Island with a father mysteriously discredited and neither money nor position enough to make people forget it had allied herself with the head of the wealthy Mingott line married two of her daughters to foreigners an Italian marquis and an English banker and put the crowning touch to her audacities by building a large house of pale creamcoloured stone when brown sandstone seemed as much the only wear as a frockcoat in the afternoon in an inaccessible wilderness near the Central Park
Old Mrs Mingotts foreign daughters had become a legend They never came back to see their mother and the latter being like many persons of active mind and dominating will sedentary and corpulent in her habit had philosophically remained at home But the creamcoloured house supposed to be modelled on the private hotels of the Parisian aristocracy was there as a visible proof of her moral courage and she throned in it among preRevolutionary furniture and souvenirs of the Tuileries of Louis Napoleon where she had shone in her middle age as placidly as if there were nothing peculiar in living above Thirtyfourth Street or in having French windows that opened like doors instead of sashes that pushed up
Every one including Mr Sillerton Jackson was agreed that old Catherine had never had beauty—a gift which in the eyes of New York justified every success and excused a certain number of failings Unkind people said that like her Imperial namesake she had won her way to success by strength of will and hardness of heart and a kind of haughty effrontery that was somehow justified by the extreme decency and dignity of her private life Mr Manson Mingott had died when she was only twentyeight and had tied up the money with an additional caution born of the general distrust of the Spicers but his bold young widow went her way fearlessly mingled freely in foreign society married her daughters in heaven knew what corrupt and fashionable circles hobnobbed with Dukes and Ambassadors associated familiarly with Papists entertained Opera singers and was the intimate friend of Mme Taglioni and all the while as Sillerton Jackson was the first to proclaim there had never been a breath on her reputation the only respect he always added in which she differed from the earlier Catherine
Mrs Manson Mingott had long since succeeded in untying her husbands fortune and had lived in affluence for half a century but memories of her early straits had made her excessively thrifty and though when she bought a dress or a piece of furniture she took care that it should be of the best she could not bring herself to spend much on the transient pleasures of the table Therefore for totally different reasons her food was as poor as Mrs Archers and her wines did nothing to redeem it Her relatives considered that the penury of her table discredited the Mingott name which had always been associated with good living but people continued to come to her in spite of the made dishes and flat champagne and in reply to the remonstrances of her son Lovell who tried to retrieve the family credit by having the best chef in New York she used to say laughingly Whats the use of two good cooks in one family now that Ive married the girls and cant eat sauces
Newland Archer as he mused on these things had once more turned his eyes toward the Mingott box He saw that Mrs Welland and her sisterinlaw were facing their semicircle of critics with the Mingottian APLOMB which old Catherine had inculcated in all her tribe and that only May Welland betrayed by a heightened colour perhaps due to the knowledge that he was watching her a sense of the gravity of the situation As for the cause of the commotion she sat gracefully in her corner of the box her eyes fixed on the stage and revealing as she leaned forward a little more shoulder and bosom than New York was accustomed to seeing at least in ladies who had reasons for wishing to pass unnoticed
Few things seemed to Newland Archer more awful than an offence against Taste that faroff divinity of whom Form was the mere visible representative and vicegerent Madame Olenskas pale and serious face appealed to his fancy as suited to the occasion and to her unhappy situation but the way her dress which had no tucker sloped away from her thin shoulders shocked and troubled him He hated to think of May Wellands being exposed to the influence of a young woman so careless of the dictates of Taste
After all he heard one of the younger men begin behind him everybody talked through the MephistophelesandMartha scenes after all just WHAT happened
Well—she left him nobody attempts to deny that
Hes an awful brute isnt he continued the young enquirer a candid Thorley who was evidently preparing to enter the lists as the ladys champion
The very worst I knew him at Nice said Lawrence Lefferts with authority A halfparalysed white sneering fellow—rather handsome head but eyes with a lot of lashes Well Ill tell you the sort when he wasnt with women he was collecting china Paying any price for both I understand
There was a general laugh and the young champion said Well then——
Well then she bolted with his secretary
Oh I see The champions face fell
It didnt last long though I heard of her a few months later living alone in Venice I believe Lovell Mingott went out to get her He said she was desperately unhappy Thats all right—but this parading her at the Operas another thing
Perhaps young Thorley hazarded shes too unhappy to be left at home
This was greeted with an irreverent laugh and the youth blushed deeply and tried to look as if he had meant to insinuate what knowing people called a double entendre
Well—its queer to have brought Miss Welland anyhow some one said in a low tone with a sideglance at Archer
Oh thats part of the campaign Grannys orders no doubt Lefferts laughed When the old lady does a thing she does it thoroughly
The act was ending and there was a general stir in the box Suddenly Newland Archer felt himself impelled to decisive action The desire to be the first man to enter Mrs Mingotts box to proclaim to the waiting world his engagement to May Welland and to see her through whatever difficulties her cousins anomalous situation might involve her in this impulse had abruptly overruled all scruples and hesitations and sent him hurrying through the red corridors to the farther side of the house
As he entered the box his eyes met Miss Wellands and he saw that she had instantly understood his motive though the family dignity which both considered so high a virtue would not permit her to tell him so The persons of their world lived in an atmosphere of faint implications and pale delicacies and the fact that he and she understood each other without a word seemed to the young man to bring them nearer than any explanation would have done Her eyes said You see why Mamma brought me and his answered I would not for the world have had you stay away
You know my niece Countess Olenska Mrs Welland enquired as she shook hands with her future soninlaw Archer bowed without extending his hand as was the custom on being introduced to a lady and Ellen Olenska bent her head slightly keeping her own palegloved hands clasped on her huge fan of eagle feathers Having greeted Mrs Lovell Mingott a large blonde lady in creaking satin he sat down beside his betrothed and said in a low tone I hope youve told Madame Olenska that were engaged I want everybody to know—I want you to let me announce it this evening at the ball
Miss Wellands face grew rosy as the dawn and she looked at him with radiant eyes If you can persuade Mamma she said but why should we change what is already settled He made no answer but that which his eyes returned and she added still more confidently smiling Tell my cousin yourself I give you leave She says she used to play with you when you were children
She made way for him by pushing back her chair and promptly and a little ostentatiously with the desire that the whole house should see what he was doing Archer seated himself at the Countess Olenskas side
We DID use to play together didnt we she asked turning her grave eyes to his You were a horrid boy and kissed me once behind a door but it was your cousin Vandie Newland who never looked at me that I was in love with Her glance swept the horseshoe curve of boxes Ah how this brings it all back to me—I see everybody here in knickerbockers and pantalettes she said with her trailing slightly foreign accent her eyes returning to his face
Agreeable as their expression was the young man was shocked that they should reflect so unseemly a picture of the august tribunal before which at that very moment her case was being tried Nothing could be in worse taste than misplaced flippancy and he answered somewhat stiffly Yes you have been away a very long time
Oh centuries and centuries so long she said that Im sure Im dead and buried and this dear old place is heaven which for reasons he could not define struck Newland Archer as an even more disrespectful way of describing New York society
III
It invariably happened in the same way
Mrs Julius Beaufort on the night of her annual ball never failed to appear at the Opera indeed she always gave her ball on an Opera night in order to emphasise her complete superiority to household cares and her possession of a staff of servants competent to organise every detail of the entertainment in her absence
The Beauforts house was one of the few in New York that possessed a ballroom it antedated even Mrs Manson Mingotts and the Headly Chiverses and at a time when it was beginning to be thought provincial to put a crash over the drawingroom floor and move the furniture upstairs the possession of a ballroom that was used for no other purpose and left for threehundredandsixtyfour days of the year to shuttered darkness with its gilt chairs stacked in a corner and its chandelier in a bag this undoubted superiority was felt to compensate for whatever was regrettable in the Beaufort past
Mrs Archer who was fond of coining her social philosophy into axioms had once said We all have our pet common people— and though the phrase was a daring one its truth was secretly admitted in many an exclusive bosom But the Beauforts were not exactly common some people said they were even worse Mrs Beaufort belonged indeed to one of Americas most honoured families she had been the lovely Regina Dallas of the South Carolina branch a penniless beauty introduced to New York society by her cousin the imprudent Medora Manson who was always doing the wrong thing from the right motive When one was related to the Mansons and the Rushworths one had a droit de cite as Mr Sillerton Jackson who had frequented the Tuileries called it in New York society but did one not forfeit it in marrying Julius Beaufort
The question was who was Beaufort He passed for an Englishman was agreeable handsome illtempered hospitable and witty He had come to America with letters of recommendation from old Mrs Manson Mingotts English soninlaw the banker and had speedily made himself an important position in the world of affairs but his habits were dissipated his tongue was bitter his antecedents were mysterious and when Medora Manson announced her cousins engagement to him it was felt to be one more act of folly in poor Medoras long record of imprudences
But folly is as often justified of her children as wisdom and two years after young Mrs Beauforts marriage it was admitted that she had the most distinguished house in New York No one knew exactly how the miracle was accomplished She was indolent passive the caustic even called her dull but dressed like an idol hung with pearls growing younger and blonder and more beautiful each year she throned in Mr Beauforts heavy brownstone palace and drew all the world there without lifting her jewelled little finger The knowing people said it was Beaufort himself who trained the servants taught the chef new dishes told the gardeners what hothouse flowers to grow for the dinnertable and the drawingrooms selected the guests brewed the afterdinner punch and dictated the little notes his wife wrote to her friends If he did these domestic activities were privately performed and he presented to the world the appearance of a careless and hospitable millionaire strolling into his own drawingroom with the detachment of an invited guest and saying My wifes gloxinias are a marvel arent they I believe she gets them out from Kew
Mr Beauforts secret people were agreed was the way he carried things off It was all very well to whisper that he had been helped to leave England by the international bankinghouse in which he had been employed he carried off that rumour as easily as the rest—though New Yorks business conscience was no less sensitive than its moral standard—he carried everything before him and all New York into his drawingrooms and for over twenty years now people had said they were going to the Beauforts with the same tone of security as if they had said they were going to Mrs Manson Mingotts and with the added satisfaction of knowing they would get hot canvasback ducks and vintage wines instead of tepid Veuve Clicquot without a year and warmedup croquettes from Philadelphia
Mrs Beaufort then had as usual appeared in her box just before the Jewel Song and when again as usual she rose at the end of the third act drew her opera cloak about her lovely shoulders and disappeared New York knew that meant that half an hour later the ball would begin
The Beaufort house was one that New Yorkers were proud to show to foreigners especially on the night of the annual ball The Beauforts had been among the first people in New York to own their own red velvet carpet and have it rolled down the steps by their own footmen under their own awning instead of hiring it with the supper and the ballroom chairs They had also inaugurated the custom of letting the ladies take their cloaks off in the hall instead of shuffling up to the hostesss bedroom and recurling their hair with the aid of the gasburner Beaufort was understood to have said that he supposed all his wifes friends had maids who saw to it that they were properly coiffees when they left home
Then the house had been boldly planned with a ballroom so that instead of squeezing through a narrow passage to get to it as at the Chiverses one marched solemnly down a vista of enfiladed drawingrooms the seagreen the crimson and the bouton dor seeing from afar the manycandled lustres reflected in the polished parquetry and beyond that the depths of a conservatory where camellias and treeferns arched their costly foliage over seats of black and gold bamboo
Newland Archer as became a young man of his position strolled in somewhat late He had left his overcoat with the silkstockinged footmen the stockings were one of Beauforts few fatuities had dawdled a while in the library hung with Spanish leather and furnished with Buhl and malachite where a few men were chatting and putting on their dancinggloves and had finally joined the line of guests whom Mrs Beaufort was receiving on the threshold of the crimson drawingroom
Archer was distinctly nervous He had not gone back to his club after the Opera as the young bloods usually did but the night being fine had walked for some distance up Fifth Avenue before turning back in the direction of the Beauforts house He was definitely afraid that the Mingotts might be going too far that in fact they might have Granny Mingotts orders to bring the Countess Olenska to the ball
From the tone of the club box he had perceived how grave a mistake that would be and though he was more than ever determined to see the thing through he felt less chivalrously eager to champion his betrotheds cousin than before their brief talk at the Opera
Wandering on to the bouton dor drawingroom where Beaufort had had the audacity to hang Love Victorious the muchdiscussed nude of Bouguereau Archer found Mrs Welland and her daughter standing near the ballroom door Couples were already gliding over the floor beyond the light of the wax candles fell on revolving tulle skirts on girlish heads wreathed with modest blossoms on the dashing aigrettes and ornaments of the young married womens coiffures and on the glitter of highly glazed shirtfronts and fresh glace gloves
Miss Welland evidently about to join the dancers hung on the threshold her liliesofthevalley in her hand she carried no other bouquet her face a little pale her eyes burning with a candid excitement A group of young men and girls were gathered about her and there was much handclasping laughing and pleasantry on which Mrs Welland standing slightly apart shed the beam of a qualified approval It was evident that Miss Welland was in the act of announcing her engagement while her mother affected the air of parental reluctance considered suitable to the occasion
Archer paused a moment It was at his express wish that the announcement had been made and yet it was not thus that he would have wished to have his happiness known To proclaim it in the heat and noise of a crowded ballroom was to rob it of the fine bloom of privacy which should belong to things nearest the heart His joy was so deep that this blurring of the surface left its essence untouched but he would have liked to keep the surface pure too It was something of a satisfaction to find that May Welland shared this feeling Her eyes fled to his beseechingly and their look said Remember were doing this because its right
No appeal could have found a more immediate response in Archers breast but he wished that the necessity of their action had been represented by some ideal reason and not simply by poor Ellen Olenska The group about Miss Welland made way for him with significant smiles and after taking his share of the felicitations he drew his betrothed into the middle of the ballroom floor and put his arm about her waist
Now we shant have to talk he said smiling into her candid eyes as they floated away on the soft waves of the Blue Danube
She made no answer Her lips trembled into a smile but the eyes remained distant and serious as if bent on some ineffable vision Dear Archer whispered pressing her to him it was borne in on him that the first hours of being engaged even if spent in a ballroom had in them something grave and sacramental What a new life it was going to be with this whiteness radiance goodness at ones side
The dance over the two as became an affianced couple wandered into the conservatory and sitting behind a tall screen of treeferns and camellias Newland pressed her gloved hand to his lips
You see I did as you asked me to she said
Yes I couldnt wait he answered smiling After a moment he added Only I wish it hadnt had to be at a ball
Yes I know She met his glance comprehendingly But after all—even here were alone together arent we
Oh dearest—always Archer cried
Evidently she was always going to understand she was always going to say the right thing The discovery made the cup of his bliss overflow and he went on gaily The worst of it is that I want to kiss you and I cant As he spoke he took a swift glance about the conservatory assured himself of their momentary privacy and catching her to him laid a fugitive pressure on her lips To counteract the audacity of this proceeding he led her to a bamboo sofa in a less secluded part of the conservatory and sitting down beside her broke a lilyofthevalley from her bouquet She sat silent and the world lay like a sunlit valley at their feet
Did you tell my cousin Ellen she asked presently as if she spoke through a dream
He roused himself and remembered that he had not done so Some invincible repugnance to speak of such things to the strange foreign woman had checked the words on his lips
No—I hadnt the chance after all he said fibbing hastily
Ah She looked disappointed but gently resolved on gaining her point You must then for I didnt either and I shouldnt like her to think—
Of course not But arent you after all the person to do it
She pondered on this If Id done it at the right time yes but now that theres been a delay I think you must explain that Id asked you to tell her at the Opera before our speaking about it to everybody here Otherwise she might think I had forgotten her You see shes one of the family and shes been away so long that shes rather—sensitive
Archer looked at her glowingly Dear and great angel Of course Ill tell her He glanced a trifle apprehensively toward the crowded ballroom But I havent seen her yet Has she come
No at the last minute she decided not to
At the last minute he echoed betraying his surprise that she should ever have considered the alternative possible
Yes Shes awfully fond of dancing the young girl answered simply But suddenly she made up her mind that her dress wasnt smart enough for a ball though we thought it so lovely and so my aunt had to take her home
Oh well— said Archer with happy indifference Nothing about his betrothed pleased him more than her resolute determination to carry to its utmost limit that ritual of ignoring the unpleasant in which they had both been brought up
She knows as well as I do he reflected the real reason of her cousins staying away but I shall never let her see by the least sign that I am conscious of there being a shadow of a shade on poor Ellen Olenskas reputation
IV
In the course of the next day the first of the usual betrothal visits were exchanged The New York ritual was precise and inflexible in such matters and in conformity with it Newland Archer first went with his mother and sister to call on Mrs Welland after which he and Mrs Welland and May drove out to old Mrs Manson Mingotts to receive that venerable ancestresss blessing
A visit to Mrs Manson Mingott was always an amusing episode to the young man The house in itself was already an historic document though not of course as venerable as certain other old family houses in University Place and lower Fifth Avenue Those were of the purest 1830 with a grim harmony of cabbagerosegarlanded carpets rosewood consoles roundarched fireplaces with black marble mantels and immense glazed bookcases of mahogany whereas old Mrs Mingott who had built her house later had bodily cast out the massive furniture of her prime and mingled with the Mingott heirlooms the frivolous upholstery of the Second Empire It was her habit to sit in a window of her sittingroom on the ground floor as if watching calmly for life and fashion to flow northward to her solitary doors She seemed in no hurry to have them come for her patience was equalled by her confidence She was sure that presently the hoardings the quarries the onestory saloons the wooden greenhouses in ragged gardens and the rocks from which goats surveyed the scene would vanish before the advance of residences as stately as her own—perhaps for she was an impartial woman even statelier and that the cobblestones over which the old clattering omnibuses bumped would be replaced by smooth asphalt such as people reported having seen in Paris Meanwhile as every one she cared to see came to HER and she could fill her rooms as easily as the Beauforts and without adding a single item to the menu of her suppers she did not suffer from her geographic isolation
The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman with a neatlyturned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon She had accepted this submergence as philosophically as all her other trials and now in extreme old age was rewarded by presenting to her mirror an almost unwrinkled expanse of firm pink and white flesh in the centre of which the traces of a small face survived as if awaiting excavation A flight of smooth double chins led down to the dizzy depths of a stillsnowy bosom veiled in snowy muslins that were held in place by a miniature portrait of the late Mr Mingott and around and below wave after wave of black silk surged away over the edges of a capacious armchair with two tiny white hands poised like gulls on the surface of the billows
The burden of Mrs Manson Mingotts flesh had long since made it impossible for her to go up and down stairs and with characteristic independence she had made her reception rooms upstairs and established herself in flagrant violation of all the New York proprieties on the ground floor of her house so that as you sat in her sittingroom window with her you caught through a door that was always open and a loopedback yellow damask portiere the unexpected vista of a bedroom with a huge low bed upholstered like a sofa and a toilettable with frivolous lace flounces and a giltframed mirror
Her visitors were startled and fascinated by the foreignness of this arrangement which recalled scenes in French fiction and architectural incentives to immorality such as the simple American had never dreamed of That was how women with lovers lived in the wicked old societies in apartments with all the rooms on one floor and all the indecent propinquities that their novels described It amused Newland Archer who had secretly situated the lovescenes of Monsieur de Camors in Mrs Mingotts bedroom to picture her blameless life led in the stagesetting of adultery but he said to himself with considerable admiration that if a lover had been what she wanted the intrepid woman would have had him too
To the general relief the Countess Olenska was not present in her grandmothers drawingroom during the visit of the betrothed couple Mrs Mingott said she had gone out which on a day of such glaring sunlight and at the shopping hour seemed in itself an indelicate thing for a compromised woman to do But at any rate it spared them the embarrassment of her presence and the faint shadow that her unhappy past might seem to shed on their radiant future The visit went off successfully as was to have been expected Old Mrs Mingott was delighted with the engagement which being long foreseen by watchful relatives had been carefully passed upon in family council and the engagement ring a large thick sapphire set in invisible claws met with her unqualified admiration
Its the new setting of course it shows the stone beautifully but it looks a little bare to oldfashioned eyes Mrs Welland had explained with a conciliatory sideglance at her future soninlaw
Oldfashioned eyes I hope you dont mean mine my dear I like all the novelties said the ancestress lifting the stone to her small bright orbs which no glasses had ever disfigured Very handsome she added returning the jewel very liberal In my time a cameo set in pearls was thought sufficient But its the hand that sets off the ring isnt it my dear Mr Archer and she waved one of her tiny hands with small pointed nails and rolls of aged fat encircling the wrist like ivory bracelets Mine was modelled in Rome by the great Ferrigiani You should have Mays done no doubt hell have it done my child Her hand is large—its these modern sports that spread the joints—but the skin is white—And whens the wedding to be she broke off fixing her eyes on Archers face
Oh— Mrs Welland murmured while the young man smiling at his betrothed replied As soon as ever it can if only youll back me up Mrs Mingott
We must give them time to get to know each other a little better mamma Mrs Welland interposed with the proper affectation of reluctance to which the ancestress rejoined Know each other Fiddlesticks Everybody in New York has always known everybody Let the young man have his way my dear dont wait till the bubbles off the wine Marry them before Lent I may catch pneumonia any winter now and I want to give the weddingbreakfast
These successive statements were received with the proper expressions of amusement incredulity and gratitude and the visit was breaking up in a vein of mild pleasantry when the door opened to admit the Countess Olenska who entered in bonnet and mantle followed by the unexpected figure of Julius Beaufort
There was a cousinly murmur of pleasure between the ladies and Mrs Mingott held out Ferrigianis model to the banker Ha Beaufort this is a rare favour She had an odd foreign way of addressing men by their surnames
Thanks I wish it might happen oftener said the visitor in his easy arrogant way Im generally so tied down but I met the Countess Ellen in Madison Square and she was good enough to let me walk home with her
Ah—I hope the house will be gayer now that Ellens here cried Mrs Mingott with a glorious effrontery Sit down—sit down Beaufort push up the yellow armchair now Ive got you I want a good gossip I hear your ball was magnificent and I understand you invited Mrs Lemuel Struthers Well—Ive a curiosity to see the woman myself
She had forgotten her relatives who were drifting out into the hall under Ellen Olenskas guidance Old Mrs Mingott had always professed a great admiration for Julius Beaufort and there was a kind of kinship in their cool domineering way and their shortcuts through the conventions Now she was eagerly curious to know what had decided the Beauforts to invite for the first time Mrs Lemuel Struthers the widow of Strutherss Shoepolish who had returned the previous year from a long initiatory sojourn in Europe to lay siege to the tight little citadel of New York Of course if you and Regina invite her the thing is settled Well we need new blood and new money—and I hear shes still very goodlooking the carnivorous old lady declared
In the hall while Mrs Welland and May drew on their furs Archer saw that the Countess Olenska was looking at him with a faintly questioning smile
Of course you know already—about May and me he said answering her look with a shy laugh She scolded me for not giving you the news last night at the Opera I had her orders to tell you that we were engaged—but I couldnt in that crowd
The smile passed from Countess Olenskas eyes to her lips she looked younger more like the bold brown Ellen Mingott of his boyhood Of course I know yes And Im so glad But one doesnt tell such things first in a crowd The ladies were on the threshold and she held out her hand
Goodbye come and see me some day she said still looking at Archer
In the carriage on the way down Fifth Avenue they talked pointedly of Mrs Mingott of her age her spirit and all her wonderful attributes No one alluded to Ellen Olenska but Archer knew that Mrs Welland was thinking Its a mistake for Ellen to be seen the very day after her arrival parading up Fifth Avenue at the crowded hour with Julius Beaufort— and the young man himself mentally added And she ought to know that a man whos just engaged doesnt spend his time calling on married women But I daresay in the set shes lived in they do—they never do anything else And in spite of the cosmopolitan views on which he prided himself he thanked heaven that he was a New Yorker and about to ally himself with one of his own kind
V
The next evening old Mr Sillerton Jackson came to dine with the Archers
Mrs Archer was a shy woman and shrank from society but she liked to be wellinformed as to its doings Her old friend Mr Sillerton Jackson applied to the investigation of his friends affairs the patience of a collector and the science of a naturalist and his sister Miss Sophy Jackson who lived with him and was entertained by all the people who could not secure her muchsoughtafter brother brought home bits of minor gossip that filled out usefully the gaps in his picture
Therefore whenever anything happened that Mrs Archer wanted to know about she asked Mr Jackson to dine and as she honoured few people with her invitations and as she and her daughter Janey were an excellent audience Mr Jackson usually came himself instead of sending his sister If he could have dictated all the conditions he would have chosen the evenings when Newland was out not because the young man was uncongenial to him the two got on capitally at their club but because the old anecdotist sometimes felt on Newlands part a tendency to weigh his evidence that the ladies of the family never showed
Mr Jackson if perfection had been attainable on earth would also have asked that Mrs Archers food should be a little better But then New York as far back as the mind of man could travel had been divided into the two great fundamental groups of the Mingotts and Mansons and all their clan who cared about eating and clothes and money and the ArcherNewlandvanderLuyden tribe who were devoted to travel horticulture and the best fiction and looked down on the grosser forms of pleasure
You couldnt have everything after all If you dined with the Lovell Mingotts you got canvasback and terrapin and vintage wines at Adeline Archers you could talk about Alpine scenery and The Marble Faun and luckily the Archer Madeira had gone round the Cape Therefore when a friendly summons came from Mrs Archer Mr Jackson who was a true eclectic would usually say to his sister Ive been a little gouty since my last dinner at the Lovell Mingotts—it will do me good to diet at Adelines
Mrs Archer who had long been a widow lived with her son and daughter in West Twentyeighth Street An upper floor was dedicated to Newland and the two women squeezed themselves into narrower quarters below In an unclouded harmony of tastes and interests they cultivated ferns in Wardian cases made macrame lace and wool embroidery on linen collected American revolutionary glazed ware subscribed to Good Words and read Ouidas novels for the sake of the Italian atmosphere They preferred those about peasant life because of the descriptions of scenery and the pleasanter sentiments though in general they liked novels about people in society whose motives and habits were more comprehensible spoke severely of Dickens who had never drawn a gentleman and considered Thackeray less at home in the great world than Bulwer—who however was beginning to be thought oldfashioned Mrs and Miss Archer were both great lovers of scenery It was what they principally sought and admired on their occasional travels abroad considering architecture and painting as subjects for men and chiefly for learned persons who read Ruskin Mrs Archer had been born a Newland and mother and daughter who were as like as sisters were both as people said true Newlands tall pale and slightly roundshouldered with long noses sweet smiles and a kind of drooping distinction like that in certain faded Reynolds portraits Their physical resemblance would have been complete if an elderly embonpoint had not stretched Mrs Archers black brocade while Miss Archers brown and purple poplins hung as the years went on more and more slackly on her virgin frame
Mentally the likeness between them as Newland was aware was less complete than their identical mannerisms often made it appear The long habit of living together in mutually dependent intimacy had given them the same vocabulary and the same habit of beginning their phrases Mother thinks or Janey thinks according as one or the other wished to advance an opinion of her own but in reality while Mrs Archers serene unimaginativeness rested easily in the accepted and familiar Janey was subject to starts and aberrations of fancy welling up from springs of suppressed romance
Mother and daughter adored each other and revered their son and brother and Archer loved them with a tenderness made compunctious and uncritical by the sense of their exaggerated admiration and by his secret satisfaction in it After all he thought it a good thing for a man to have his authority respected in his own house even if his sense of humour sometimes made him question the force of his mandate
On this occasion the young man was very sure that Mr Jackson would rather have had him dine out but he had his own reasons for not doing so
Of course old Jackson wanted to talk about Ellen Olenska and of course Mrs Archer and Janey wanted to hear what he had to tell All three would be slightly embarrassed by Newlands presence now that his prospective relation to the Mingott clan had been made known and the young man waited with an amused curiosity to see how they would turn the difficulty
They began obliquely by talking about Mrs Lemuel Struthers
Its a pity the Beauforts asked her Mrs Archer said gently But then Regina always does what he tells her and BEAUFORT—
Certain nuances escape Beaufort said Mr Jackson cautiously inspecting the broiled shad and wondering for the thousandth time why Mrs Archers cook always burnt the roe to a cinder Newland who had long shared his wonder could always detect it in the older mans expression of melancholy disapproval
Oh necessarily Beaufort is a vulgar man said Mrs Archer My grandfather Newland always used to say to my mother Whatever you do dont let that fellow Beaufort be introduced to the girls But at least hes had the advantage of associating with gentlemen in England too they say Its all very mysterious— She glanced at Janey and paused She and Janey knew every fold of the Beaufort mystery but in public Mrs Archer continued to assume that the subject was not one for the unmarried
But this Mrs Struthers Mrs Archer continued what did you say SHE was Sillerton
Out of a mine or rather out of the saloon at the head of the pit Then with Living WaxWorks touring New England After the police broke THAT up they say she lived— Mr Jackson in his turn glanced at Janey whose eyes began to bulge from under her prominent lids There were still hiatuses for her in Mrs Strutherss past
Then Mr Jackson continued and Archer saw he was wondering why no one had told the butler never to slice cucumbers with a steel knife then Lemuel Struthers came along They say his advertiser used the girls head for the shoepolish posters her hairs intensely black you know—the Egyptian style Anyhow he—eventually—married her There were volumes of innuendo in the way the eventually was spaced and each syllable given its due stress
Oh well—at the pass weve come to nowadays it doesnt matter said Mrs Archer indifferently The ladies were not really interested in Mrs Struthers just then the subject of Ellen Olenska was too fresh and too absorbing to them Indeed Mrs Strutherss name had been introduced by Mrs Archer only that she might presently be able to say And Newlands new cousin—Countess Olenska Was SHE at the ball too
There was a faint touch of sarcasm in the reference to her son and Archer knew it and had expected it Even Mrs Archer who was seldom unduly pleased with human events had been altogether glad of her sons engagement Especially after that silly business with Mrs Rushworth as she had remarked to Janey alluding to what had once seemed to Newland a tragedy of which his soul would always bear the scar
There was no better match in New York than May Welland look at the question from whatever point you chose Of course such a marriage was only what Newland was entitled to but young men are so foolish and incalculable—and some women so ensnaring and unscrupulous—that it was nothing short of a miracle to see ones only son safe past the Siren Isle and in the haven of a blameless domesticity
All this Mrs Archer felt and her son knew she felt but he knew also that she had been perturbed by the premature announcement of his engagement or rather by its cause and it was for that reason—because on the whole he was a tender and indulgent master—that he had stayed at home that evening Its not that I dont approve of the Mingotts esprit de corps but why Newlands engagement should be mixed up with that Olenska womans comings and goings I dont see Mrs Archer grumbled to Janey the only witness of her slight lapses from perfect sweetness
She had behaved beautifully—and in beautiful behaviour she was unsurpassed—during the call on Mrs Welland but Newland knew and his betrothed doubtless guessed that all through the visit she and Janey were nervously on the watch for Madame Olenskas possible intrusion and when they left the house together she had permitted herself to say to her son Im thankful that Augusta Welland received us alone
These indications of inward disturbance moved Archer the more that he too felt that the Mingotts had gone a little too far But as it was against all the rules of their code that the mother and son should ever allude to what was uppermost in their thoughts he simply replied Oh well theres always a phase of family parties to be gone through when one gets engaged and the sooner its over the better At which his mother merely pursed her lips under the lace veil that hung down from her grey velvet bonnet trimmed with frosted grapes
Her revenge he felt—her lawful revenge—would be to draw Mr Jackson that evening on the Countess Olenska and having publicly done his duty as a future member of the Mingott clan the young man had no objection to hearing the lady discussed in private—except that the subject was already beginning to bore him
Mr Jackson had helped himself to a slice of the tepid filet which the mournful butler had handed him with a look as sceptical as his own and had rejected the mushroom sauce after a scarcely perceptible sniff He looked baffled and hungry and Archer reflected that he would probably finish his meal on Ellen Olenska
Mr Jackson leaned back in his chair and glanced up at the candlelit Archers Newlands and van der Luydens hanging in dark frames on the dark walls
Ah how your grandfather Archer loved a good dinner my dear Newland he said his eyes on the portrait of a plump fullchested young man in a stock and a blue coat with a view of a whitecolumned countryhouse behind him Well—well—well I wonder what he would have said to all these foreign marriages
Mrs Archer ignored the allusion to the ancestral cuisine and Mr Jackson continued with deliberation No she was NOT at the ball
Ah— Mrs Archer murmured in a tone that implied She had that decency
Perhaps the Beauforts dont know her Janey suggested with her artless malice
Mr Jackson gave a faint sip as if he had been tasting invisible Madeira Mrs Beaufort may not—but Beaufort certainly does for she was seen walking up Fifth Avenue this afternoon with him by the whole of New York
Mercy— moaned Mrs Archer evidently perceiving the uselessness of trying to ascribe the actions of foreigners to a sense of delicacy
I wonder if she wears a round hat or a bonnet in the afternoon Janey speculated At the Opera I know she had on dark blue velvet perfectly plain and flat—like a nightgown
Janey said her mother and Miss Archer blushed and tried to look audacious
It was at any rate in better taste not to go to the ball Mrs Archer continued
A spirit of perversity moved her son to rejoin I dont think it was a question of taste with her May said she meant to go and then decided that the dress in question wasnt smart enough
Mrs Archer smiled at this confirmation of her inference Poor Ellen she simply remarked adding compassionately We must always bear in mind what an eccentric bringingup Medora Manson gave her What can you expect of a girl who was allowed to wear black satin at her comingout ball
Ah—dont I remember her in it said Mr Jackson adding Poor girl in the tone of one who while enjoying the memory had fully understood at the time what the sight portended
Its odd Janey remarked that she should have kept such an ugly name as Ellen I should have changed it to Elaine She glanced about the table to see the effect of this
Her brother laughed Why Elaine
I dont know it sounds more—more Polish said Janey blushing
It sounds more conspicuous and that can hardly be what she wishes said Mrs Archer distantly
Why not broke in her son growing suddenly argumentative Why shouldnt she be conspicuous if she chooses Why should she slink about as if it were she who had disgraced herself Shes poor Ellen certainly because she had the bad luck to make a wretched marriage but I dont see that thats a reason for hiding her head as if she were the culprit
That I suppose said Mr Jackson speculatively is the line the Mingotts mean to take
The young man reddened I didnt have to wait for their cue if thats what you mean sir Madame Olenska has had an unhappy life that doesnt make her an outcast
There are rumours began Mr Jackson glancing at Janey
Oh I know the secretary the young man took him up Nonsense mother Janeys grownup They say dont they he went on that the secretary helped her to get away from her brute of a husband who kept her practically a prisoner Well what if he did I hope there isnt a man among us who wouldnt have done the same in such a case
Mr Jackson glanced over his shoulder to say to the sad butler Perhaps that sauce just a little after all— then having helped himself he remarked Im told shes looking for a house She means to live here
I hear she means to get a divorce said Janey boldly
I hope she will Archer exclaimed
The word had fallen like a bombshell in the pure and tranquil atmosphere of the Archer diningroom Mrs Archer raised her delicate eyebrows in the particular curve that signified The butler— and the young man himself mindful of the bad taste of discussing such intimate matters in public hastily branched off into an account of his visit to old Mrs Mingott
After dinner according to immemorial custom Mrs Archer and Janey trailed their long silk draperies up to the drawingroom where while the gentlemen smoked below stairs they sat beside a Carcel lamp with an engraved globe facing each other across a rosewood worktable with a green silk bag under it and stitched at the two ends of a tapestry band of fieldflowers destined to adorn an occasional chair in the drawingroom of young Mrs Newland Archer
While this rite was in progress in the drawingroom Archer settled Mr Jackson in an armchair near the fire in the Gothic library and handed him a cigar Mr Jackson sank into the armchair with satisfaction lit his cigar with perfect confidence it was Newland who bought them and stretching his thin old ankles to the coals said You say the secretary merely helped her to get away my dear fellow Well he was still helping her a year later then for somebody met em living at Lausanne together
Newland reddened Living together Well why not Who had the right to make her life over if she hadnt Im sick of the hypocrisy that would bury alive a woman of her age if her husband prefers to live with harlots
He stopped and turned away angrily to light his cigar Women ought to be free—as free as we are he declared making a discovery of which he was too irritated to measure the terrific consequences
Mr Sillerton Jackson stretched his ankles nearer the coals and emitted a sardonic whistle
Well he said after a pause apparently Count Olenski takes your view for I never heard of his having lifted a finger to get his wife back
VI
That evening after Mr Jackson had taken himself away and the ladies had retired to their chintzcurtained bedroom Newland Archer mounted thoughtfully to his own study A vigilant hand had as usual kept the fire alive and the lamp trimmed and the room with its rows and rows of books its bronze and steel statuettes of The Fencers on the mantelpiece and its many photographs of famous pictures looked singularly homelike and welcoming
As he dropped into his armchair near the fire his eyes rested on a large photograph of May Welland which the young girl had given him in the first days of their romance and which had now displaced all the other portraits on the table With a new sense of awe he looked at the frank forehead serious eyes and gay innocent mouth of the young creature whose souls custodian he was to be That terrifying product of the social system he belonged to and believed in the young girl who knew nothing and expected everything looked back at him like a stranger through May Wellands familiar features and once more it was borne in on him that marriage was not the safe anchorage he had been taught to think but a voyage on uncharted seas
The case of the Countess Olenska had stirred up old settled convictions and set them drifting dangerously through his mind His own exclamation Women should be free—as free as we are struck to the root of a problem that it was agreed in his world to regard as nonexistent Nice women however wronged would never claim the kind of freedom he meant and generousminded men like himself were therefore—in the heat of argument—the more chivalrously ready to concede it to them Such verbal generosities were in fact only a humbugging disguise of the inexorable conventions that tied things together and bound people down to the old pattern But here he was pledged to defend on the part of his betrotheds cousin conduct that on his own wifes part would justify him in calling down on her all the thunders of Church and State Of course the dilemma was purely hypothetical since he wasnt a blackguard Polish nobleman it was absurd to speculate what his wifes rights would be if he WERE But Newland Archer was too imaginative not to feel that in his case and Mays the tie might gall for reasons far less gross and palpable What could he and she really know of each other since it was his duty as a decent fellow to conceal his past from her and hers as a marriageable girl to have no past to conceal What if for some one of the subtler reasons that would tell with both of them they should tire of each other misunderstand or irritate each other He reviewed his friends marriages—the supposedly happy ones—and saw none that answered even remotely to the passionate and tender comradeship which he pictured as his permanent relation with May Welland He perceived that such a picture presupposed on her part the experience the versatility the freedom of judgment which she had been carefully trained not to possess and with a shiver of foreboding he saw his marriage becoming what most of the other marriages about him were a dull association of material and social interests held together by ignorance on the one side and hypocrisy on the other Lawrence Lefferts occurred to him as the husband who had most completely realised this enviable ideal As became the highpriest of form he had formed a wife so completely to his own convenience that in the most conspicuous moments of his frequent loveaffairs with other mens wives she went about in smiling unconsciousness saying that Lawrence was so frightfully strict and had been known to blush indignantly and avert her gaze when some one alluded in her presence to the fact that Julius Beaufort as became a foreigner of doubtful origin had what was known in New York as another establishment
Archer tried to console himself with the thought that he was not quite such an ass as Larry Lefferts nor May such a simpleton as poor Gertrude but the difference was after all one of intelligence and not of standards In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world where the real thing was never said or done or even thought but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs as when Mrs Welland who knew exactly why Archer had pressed her to announce her daughters engagement at the Beaufort ball and had indeed expected him to do no less yet felt obliged to simulate reluctance and the air of having had her hand forced quite as in the books on Primitive Man that people of advanced culture were beginning to read the savage bride is dragged with shrieks from her parents tent
The result of course was that the young girl who was the centre of this elaborate system of mystification remained the more inscrutable for her very frankness and assurance She was frank poor darling because she had nothing to conceal assured because she knew of nothing to be on her guard against and with no better preparation than this she was to be plunged overnight into what people evasively called the facts of life
The young man was sincerely but placidly in love He delighted in the radiant good looks of his betrothed in her health her horsemanship her grace and quickness at games and the shy interest in books and ideas that she was beginning to develop under his guidance She had advanced far enough to join him in ridiculing the Idyls of the King but not to feel the beauty of Ulysses and the Lotus Eaters She was straightforward loyal and brave she had a sense of humour chiefly proved by her laughing at HIS jokes and he suspected in the depths of her innocentlygazing soul a glow of feeling that it would be a joy to waken But when he had gone the brief round of her he returned discouraged by the thought that all this frankness and innocence were only an artificial product Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive guile And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and longdead ancestresses because it was supposed to be what he wanted what he had a right to in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow
There was a certain triteness in these reflections they were those habitual to young men on the approach of their wedding day But they were generally accompanied by a sense of compunction and selfabasement of which Newland Archer felt no trace He could not deplore as Thackerays heroes so often exasperated him by doing that he had not a blank page to offer his bride in exchange for the unblemished one she was to give to him He could not get away from the fact that if he had been brought up as she had they would have been no more fit to find their way about than the Babes in the Wood nor could he for all his anxious cogitations see any honest reason any that is unconnected with his own momentary pleasure and the passion of masculine vanity why his bride should not have been allowed the same freedom of experience as himself
Such questions at such an hour were bound to drift through his mind but he was conscious that their uncomfortable persistence and precision were due to the inopportune arrival of the Countess Olenska Here he was at the very moment of his betrothal—a moment for pure thoughts and cloudless hopes—pitchforked into a coil of scandal which raised all the special problems he would have preferred to let lie Hang Ellen Olenska he grumbled as he covered his fire and began to undress He could not really see why her fate should have the least bearing on his yet he dimly felt that he had only just begun to measure the risks of the championship which his engagement had forced upon him
A few days later the bolt fell
The Lovell Mingotts had sent out cards for what was known as a formal dinner that is three extra footmen two dishes for each course and a Roman punch in the middle and had headed their invitations with the words To meet the Countess Olenska in accordance with the hospitable American fashion which treats strangers as if they were royalties or at least as their ambassadors
The guests had been selected with a boldness and discrimination in which the initiated recognised the firm hand of Catherine the Great Associated with such immemorial standbys as the Selfridge Merrys who were asked everywhere because they always had been the Beauforts on whom there was a claim of relationship and Mr Sillerton Jackson and his sister Sophy who went wherever her brother told her to were some of the most fashionable and yet most irreproachable of the dominant young married set the Lawrence Leffertses Mrs Lefferts Rushworth the lovely widow the Harry Thorleys the Reggie Chiverses and young Morris Dagonet and his wife who was a van der Luyden The company indeed was perfectly assorted since all the members belonged to the little inner group of people who during the long New York season disported themselves together daily and nightly with apparently undiminished zest
Fortyeight hours later the unbelievable had happened every one had refused the Mingotts invitation except the Beauforts and old Mr Jackson and his sister The intended slight was emphasised by the fact that even the Reggie Chiverses who were of the Mingott clan were among those inflicting it and by the uniform wording of the notes in all of which the writers regretted that they were unable to accept without the mitigating plea of a previous engagement that ordinary courtesy prescribed
New York society was in those days far too small and too scant in its resources for every one in it including liverystablekeepers butlers and cooks not to know exactly on which evenings people were free and it was thus possible for the recipients of Mrs Lovell Mingotts invitations to make cruelly clear their determination not to meet the Countess Olenska
The blow was unexpected but the Mingotts as their way was met it gallantly Mrs Lovell Mingott confided the case to Mrs Welland who confided it to Newland Archer who aflame at the outrage appealed passionately and authoritatively to his mother who after a painful period of inward resistance and outward temporising succumbed to his instances as she always did and immediately embracing his cause with an energy redoubled by her previous hesitations put on her grey velvet bonnet and said Ill go and see Louisa van der Luyden
The New York of Newland Archers day was a small and slippery pyramid in which as yet hardly a fissure had been made or a foothold gained At its base was a firm foundation of what Mrs Archer called plain people an honourable but obscure majority of respectable families who as in the case of the Spicers or the Leffertses or the Jacksons had been raised above their level by marriage with one of the ruling clans People Mrs Archer always said were not as particular as they used to be and with old Catherine Spicer ruling one end of Fifth Avenue and Julius Beaufort the other you couldnt expect the old traditions to last much longer
Firmly narrowing upward from this wealthy but inconspicuous substratum was the compact and dominant group which the Mingotts Newlands Chiverses and Mansons so actively represented Most people imagined them to be the very apex of the pyramid but they themselves at least those of Mrs Archers generation were aware that in the eyes of the professional genealogist only a still smaller number of families could lay claim to that eminence
Dont tell me Mrs Archer would say to her children all this modern newspaper rubbish about a New York aristocracy If there is one neither the Mingotts nor the Mansons belong to it no nor the Newlands or the Chiverses either Our grandfathers and greatgrandfathers were just respectable English or Dutch merchants who came to the colonies to make their fortune and stayed here because they did so well One of your greatgrandfathers signed the Declaration and another was a general on Washingtons staff and received General Burgoynes sword after the battle of Saratoga These are things to be proud of but they have nothing to do with rank or class New York has always been a commercial community and there are not more than three families in it who can claim an aristocratic origin in the real sense of the word
Mrs Archer and her son and daughter like every one else in New York knew who these privileged beings were the Dagonets of Washington Square who came of an old English county family allied with the Pitts and Foxes the Lannings who had intermarried with the descendants of Count de Grasse and the van der Luydens direct descendants of the first Dutch governor of Manhattan and related by prerevolutionary marriages to several members of the French and British aristocracy
The Lannings survived only in the person of two very old but lively Miss Lannings who lived cheerfully and reminiscently among family portraits and Chippendale the Dagonets were a considerable clan allied to the best names in Baltimore and Philadelphia but the van der Luydens who stood above all of them had faded into a kind of superterrestrial twilight from which only two figures impressively emerged those of Mr and Mrs Henry van der Luyden
Mrs Henry van der Luyden had been Louisa Dagonet and her mother had been the granddaughter of Colonel du Lac of an old Channel Island family who had fought under Cornwallis and had settled in Maryland after the war with his bride Lady Angelica Trevenna fifth daughter of the Earl of St Austrey The tie between the Dagonets the du Lacs of Maryland and their aristocratic Cornish kinsfolk the Trevennas had always remained close and cordial Mr and Mrs van der Luyden had more than once paid long visits to the present head of the house of Trevenna the Duke of St Austrey at his countryseat in Cornwall and at St Austrey in Gloucestershire and his Grace had frequently announced his intention of some day returning their visit without the Duchess who feared the Atlantic
Mr and Mrs van der Luyden divided their time between Trevenna their place in Maryland and Skuytercliff the great estate on the Hudson which had been one of the colonial grants of the Dutch government to the famous first Governor and of which Mr van der Luyden was still Patroon Their large solemn house in Madison Avenue was seldom opened and when they came to town they received in it only their most intimate friends
I wish you would go with me Newland his mother said suddenly pausing at the door of the Brown coupe Louisa is fond of you and of course its on account of dear May that Im taking this step—and also because if we dont all stand together therell be no such thing as Society left
VII
Mrs Henry van der Luyden listened in silence to her cousin Mrs Archers narrative
It was all very well to tell yourself in advance that Mrs van der Luyden was always silent and that though noncommittal by nature and training she was very kind to the people she really liked Even personal experience of these facts was not always a protection from the chill that descended on one in the highceilinged whitewalled Madison Avenue drawingroom with the pale brocaded armchairs so obviously uncovered for the occasion and the gauze still veiling the ormolu mantel ornaments and the beautiful old carved frame of Gainsboroughs Lady Angelica du Lac
Mrs van der Luydens portrait by Huntington in black velvet and Venetian point faced that of her lovely ancestress It was generally considered as fine as a Cabanel and though twenty years had elapsed since its execution was still a perfect likeness Indeed the Mrs van der Luyden who sat beneath it listening to Mrs Archer might have been the twinsister of the fair and still youngish woman drooping against a gilt armchair before a green rep curtain Mrs van der Luyden still wore black velvet and Venetian point when she went into society—or rather since she never dined out when she threw open her own doors to receive it Her fair hair which had faded without turning grey was still parted in flat overlapping points on her forehead and the straight nose that divided her pale blue eyes was only a little more pinched about the nostrils than when the portrait had been painted She always indeed struck Newland Archer as having been rather gruesomely preserved in the airless atmosphere of a perfectly irreproachable existence as bodies caught in glaciers keep for years a rosy lifeindeath
Like all his family he esteemed and admired Mrs van der Luyden but he found her gentle bending sweetness less approachable than the grimness of some of his mothers old aunts fierce spinsters who said No on principle before they knew what they were going to be asked
Mrs van der Luydens attitude said neither yes nor no but always appeared to incline to clemency till her thin lips wavering into the shadow of a smile made the almost invariable reply I shall first have to talk this over with my husband
She and Mr van der Luyden were so exactly alike that Archer often wondered how after forty years of the closest conjugality two such merged identities ever separated themselves enough for anything as controversial as a talkingover But as neither had ever reached a decision without prefacing it by this mysterious conclave Mrs Archer and her son having set forth their case waited resignedly for the familiar phrase
Mrs van der Luyden however who had seldom surprised any one now surprised them by reaching her long hand toward the bellrope
I think she said I should like Henry to hear what you have told me
A footman appeared to whom she gravely added If Mr van der Luyden has finished reading the newspaper please ask him to be kind enough to come
She said reading the newspaper in the tone in which a Ministers wife might have said Presiding at a Cabinet meeting—not from any arrogance of mind but because the habit of a lifetime and the attitude of her friends and relations had led her to consider Mr van der Luydens least gesture as having an almost sacerdotal importance
Her promptness of action showed that she considered the case as pressing as Mrs Archer but lest she should be thought to have committed herself in advance she added with the sweetest look Henry always enjoys seeing you dear Adeline and he will wish to congratulate Newland
The double doors had solemnly reopened and between them appeared Mr Henry van der Luyden tall spare and frockcoated with faded fair hair a straight nose like his wifes and the same look of frozen gentleness in eyes that were merely pale grey instead of pale blue
Mr van der Luyden greeted Mrs Archer with cousinly affability proffered to Newland lowvoiced congratulations couched in the same language as his wifes and seated himself in one of the brocade armchairs with the simplicity of a reigning sovereign
I had just finished reading the Times he said laying his long fingertips together In town my mornings are so much occupied that I find it more convenient to read the newspapers after luncheon
Ah theres a great deal to be said for that plan—indeed I think my uncle Egmont used to say he found it less agitating not to read the morning papers till after dinner said Mrs Archer responsively
Yes my good father abhorred hurry But now we live in a constant rush said Mr van der Luyden in measured tones looking with pleasant deliberation about the large shrouded room which to Archer was so complete an image of its owners
But I hope you HAD finished your reading Henry his wife interposed
Quite—quite he reassured her
Then I should like Adeline to tell you—
Oh its really Newlands story said his mother smiling and proceeded to rehearse once more the monstrous tale of the affront inflicted on Mrs Lovell Mingott
Of course she ended Augusta Welland and Mary Mingott both felt that especially in view of Newlands engagement you and Henry OUGHT TO KNOW
Ah— said Mr van der Luyden drawing a deep breath
There was a silence during which the tick of the monumental ormolu clock on the white marble mantelpiece grew as loud as the boom of a minutegun Archer contemplated with awe the two slender faded figures seated side by side in a kind of viceregal rigidity mouthpieces of some remote ancestral authority which fate compelled them to wield when they would so much rather have lived in simplicity and seclusion digging invisible weeds out of the perfect lawns of Skuytercliff and playing Patience together in the evenings
Mr van der Luyden was the first to speak
You really think this is due to some—some intentional interference of Lawrence Leffertss he enquired turning to Archer
Im certain of it sir Larry has been going it rather harder than usual lately—if cousin Louisa wont mind my mentioning it—having rather a stiff affair with the postmasters wife in their village or some one of that sort and whenever poor Gertrude Lefferts begins to suspect anything and hes afraid of trouble he gets up a fuss of this kind to show how awfully moral he is and talks at the top of his voice about the impertinence of inviting his wife to meet people he doesnt wish her to know Hes simply using Madame Olenska as a lightningrod Ive seen him try the same thing often before
The LEFFERTSES— said Mrs van der Luyden
The LEFFERTSES— echoed Mrs Archer What would uncle Egmont have said of Lawrence Leffertss pronouncing on anybodys social position It shows what Society has come to
Well hope it has not quite come to that said Mr van der Luyden firmly
Ah if only you and Louisa went out more sighed Mrs Archer
But instantly she became aware of her mistake The van der Luydens were morbidly sensitive to any criticism of their secluded existence They were the arbiters of fashion the Court of last Appeal and they knew it and bowed to their fate But being shy and retiring persons with no natural inclination for their part they lived as much as possible in the sylvan solitude of Skuytercliff and when they came to town declined all invitations on the plea of Mrs van der Luydens health
Newland Archer came to his mothers rescue Everybody in New York knows what you and cousin Louisa represent Thats why Mrs Mingott felt she ought not to allow this slight on Countess Olenska to pass without consulting you
Mrs van der Luyden glanced at her husband who glanced back at her
It is the principle that I dislike said Mr van der Luyden As long as a member of a wellknown family is backed up by that family it should be considered—final
It seems so to me said his wife as if she were producing a new thought
I had no idea Mr van der Luyden continued that things had come to such a pass He paused and looked at his wife again It occurs to me my dear that the Countess Olenska is already a sort of relation—through Medora Mansons first husband At any rate she will be when Newland marries He turned toward the young man Have you read this mornings Times Newland
Why yes sir said Archer who usually tossed off half a dozen papers with his morning coffee
Husband and wife looked at each other again Their pale eyes clung together in prolonged and serious consultation then a faint smile fluttered over Mrs van der Luydens face She had evidently guessed and approved
Mr van der Luyden turned to Mrs Archer If Louisas health allowed her to dine out—I wish you would say to Mrs Lovell Mingott—she and I would have been happy to—er—fill the places of the Lawrence Leffertses at her dinner He paused to let the irony of this sink in As you know this is impossible Mrs Archer sounded a sympathetic assent But Newland tells me he has read this mornings Times therefore he has probably seen that Louisas relative the Duke of St Austrey arrives next week on the Russia He is coming to enter his new sloop the Guinevere in next summers International Cup Race and also to have a little canvasback shooting at Trevenna Mr van der Luyden paused again and continued with increasing benevolence Before taking him down to Maryland we are inviting a few friends to meet him here—only a little dinner—with a reception afterward I am sure Louisa will be as glad as I am if Countess Olenska will let us include her among our guests He got up bent his long body with a stiff friendliness toward his cousin and added I think I have Louisas authority for saying that she will herself leave the invitation to dine when she drives out presently with our cards—of course with our cards
Mrs Archer who knew this to be a hint that the seventeenhand chestnuts which were never kept waiting were at the door rose with a hurried murmur of thanks Mrs van der Luyden beamed on her with the smile of Esther interceding with Ahasuerus but her husband raised a protesting hand
There is nothing to thank me for dear Adeline nothing whatever This kind of thing must not happen in New York it shall not as long as I can help it he pronounced with sovereign gentleness as he steered his cousins to the door
Two hours later every one knew that the great Cspring barouche in which Mrs van der Luyden took the air at all seasons had been seen at old Mrs Mingotts door where a large square envelope was handed in and that evening at the Opera Mr Sillerton Jackson was able to state that the envelope contained a card inviting the Countess Olenska to the dinner which the van der Luydens were giving the following week for their cousin the Duke of St Austrey
Some of the younger men in the club box exchanged a smile at this announcement and glanced sideways at Lawrence Lefferts who sat carelessly in the front of the box pulling his long fair moustache and who remarked with authority as the soprano paused No one but Patti ought to attempt the Sonnambula
VIII
It was generally agreed in New York that the Countess Olenska had lost her looks
She had appeared there first in Newland Archers boyhood as a brilliantly pretty little girl of nine or ten of whom people said that she ought to be painted Her parents had been continental wanderers and after a roaming babyhood she had lost them both and been taken in charge by her aunt Medora Manson also a wanderer who was herself returning to New York to settle down
Poor Medora repeatedly widowed was always coming home to settle down each time in a less expensive house and bringing with her a new husband or an adopted child but after a few months she invariably parted from her husband or quarrelled with her ward and having got rid of her house at a loss set out again on her wanderings As her mother had been a Rushworth and her last unhappy marriage had linked her to one of the crazy Chiverses New York looked indulgently on her eccentricities but when she returned with her little orphaned niece whose parents had been popular in spite of their regrettable taste for travel people thought it a pity that the pretty child should be in such hands
Every one was disposed to be kind to little Ellen Mingott though her dusky red cheeks and tight curls gave her an air of gaiety that seemed unsuitable in a child who should still have been in black for her parents It was one of the misguided Medoras many peculiarities to flout the unalterable rules that regulated American mourning and when she stepped from the steamer her family were scandalised to see that the crape veil she wore for her own brother was seven inches shorter than those of her sistersinlaw while little Ellen was in crimson merino and amber beads like a gipsy foundling
But New York had so long resigned itself to Medora that only a few old ladies shook their heads over Ellens gaudy clothes while her other relations fell under the charm of her high colour and high spirits She was a fearless and familiar little thing who asked disconcerting questions made precocious comments and possessed outlandish arts such as dancing a Spanish shawl dance and singing Neapolitan lovesongs to a guitar Under the direction of her aunt whose real name was Mrs Thorley Chivers but who having received a Papal title had resumed her first husbands patronymic and called herself the Marchioness Manson because in Italy she could turn it into Manzoni the little girl received an expensive but incoherent education which included drawing from the model a thing never dreamed of before and playing the piano in quintets with professional musicians
Of course no good could come of this and when a few years later poor Chivers finally died in a madhouse his widow draped in strange weeds again pulled up stakes and departed with Ellen who had grown into a tall bony girl with conspicuous eyes For some time no more was heard of them then news came of Ellens marriage to an immensely rich Polish nobleman of legendary fame whom she had met at a ball at the Tuileries and who was said to have princely establishments in Paris Nice and Florence a yacht at Cowes and many square miles of shooting in Transylvania She disappeared in a kind of sulphurous apotheosis and when a few years later Medora again came back to New York subdued impoverished mourning a third husband and in quest of a still smaller house people wondered that her rich niece had not been able to do something for her Then came the news that Ellens own marriage had ended in disaster and that she was herself returning home to seek rest and oblivion among her kinsfolk
These things passed through Newland Archers mind a week later as he watched the Countess Olenska enter the van der Luyden drawingroom on the evening of the momentous dinner The occasion was a solemn one and he wondered a little nervously how she would carry it off She came rather late one hand still ungloved and fastening a bracelet about her wrist yet she entered without any appearance of haste or embarrassment the drawingroom in which New Yorks most chosen company was somewhat awfully assembled
In the middle of the room she paused looking about her with a grave mouth and smiling eyes and in that instant Newland Archer rejected the general verdict on her looks It was true that her early radiance was gone The red cheeks had paled she was thin worn a little olderlooking than her age which must have been nearly thirty But there was about her the mysterious authority of beauty a sureness in the carriage of the head the movement of the eyes which without being in the least theatrical struck his as highly trained and full of a conscious power At the same time she was simpler in manner than most of the ladies present and many people as he heard afterward from Janey were disappointed that her appearance was not more stylish—for stylishness was what New York most valued It was perhaps Archer reflected because her early vivacity had disappeared because she was so quiet—quiet in her movements her voice and the tones of her lowpitched voice New York had expected something a good deal more reasonant in a young woman with such a history
The dinner was a somewhat formidable business Dining with the van der Luydens was at best no light matter and dining there with a Duke who was their cousin was almost a religious solemnity It pleased Archer to think that only an old New Yorker could perceive the shade of difference to New York between being merely a Duke and being the van der Luydens Duke New York took stray noblemen calmly and even except in the Struthers set with a certain distrustful hauteur but when they presented such credentials as these they were received with an oldfashioned cordiality that they would have been greatly mistaken in ascribing solely to their standing in Debrett It was for just such distinctions that the young man cherished his old New York even while he smiled at it
The van der Luydens had done their best to emphasise the importance of the occasion The du Lac Sevres and the Trevenna George II plate were out so was the van der Luyden Lowestoft East India Company and the Dagonet Crown Derby Mrs van der Luyden looked more than ever like a Cabanel and Mrs Archer in her grandmothers seedpearls and emeralds reminded her son of an Isabey miniature All the ladies had on their handsomest jewels but it was characteristic of the house and the occasion that these were mostly in rather heavy oldfashioned settings and old Miss Lanning who had been persuaded to come actually wore her mothers cameos and a Spanish blonde shawl
The Countess Olenska was the only young woman at the dinner yet as Archer scanned the smooth plump elderly faces between their diamond necklaces and towering ostrich feathers they struck him as curiously immature compared with hers It frightened him to think what must have gone to the making of her eyes
The Duke of St Austrey who sat at his hostesss right was naturally the chief figure of the evening But if the Countess Olenska was less conspicuous than had been hoped the Duke was almost invisible Being a wellbred man he had not like another recent ducal visitor come to the dinner in a shootingjacket but his evening clothes were so shabby and baggy and he wore them with such an air of their being homespun that with his stooping way of sitting and the vast beard spreading over his shirtfront he hardly gave the appearance of being in dinner attire He was short roundshouldered sunburnt with a thick nose small eyes and a sociable smile but he seldom spoke and when he did it was in such low tones that despite the frequent silences of expectation about the table his remarks were lost to all but his neighbours
When the men joined the ladies after dinner the Duke went straight up to the Countess Olenska and they sat down in a corner and plunged into animated talk Neither seemed aware that the Duke should first have paid his respects to Mrs Lovell Mingott and Mrs Headly Chivers and the Countess have conversed with that amiable hypochondriac Mr Urban Dagonet of Washington Square who in order to have the pleasure of meeting her had broken through his fixed rule of not dining out between January and April The two chatted together for nearly twenty minutes then the Countess rose and walking alone across the wide drawingroom sat down at Newland Archers side
It was not the custom in New York drawingrooms for a lady to get up and walk away from one gentleman in order to seek the company of another Etiquette required that she should wait immovable as an idol while the men who wished to converse with her succeeded each other at her side But the Countess was apparently unaware of having broken any rule she sat at perfect ease in a corner of the sofa beside Archer and looked at him with the kindest eyes
I want you to talk to me about May she said
Instead of answering her he asked You knew the Duke before
Oh yes—we used to see him every winter at Nice Hes very fond of gambling—he used to come to the house a great deal She said it in the simplest manner as if she had said Hes fond of wildflowers and after a moment she added candidly I think hes the dullest man I ever met
This pleased her companion so much that he forgot the slight shock her previous remark had caused him It was undeniably exciting to meet a lady who found the van der Luydens Duke dull and dared to utter the opinion He longed to question her to hear more about the life of which her careless words had given him so illuminating a glimpse but he feared to touch on distressing memories and before he could think of anything to say she had strayed back to her original subject
May is a darling Ive seen no young girl in New York so handsome and so intelligent Are you very much in love with her
Newland Archer reddened and laughed As much as a man can be
She continued to consider him thoughtfully as if not to miss any shade of meaning in what he said Do you think then there is a limit
To being in love If there is I havent found it
She glowed with sympathy Ah—its really and truly a romance
The most romantic of romances
How delightful And you found it all out for yourselves—it was not in the least arranged for you
Archer looked at her incredulously Have you forgotten he asked with a smile that in our country we dont allow our marriages to be arranged for us
A dusky blush rose to her cheek and he instantly regretted his words
Yes she answered Id forgotten You must forgive me if I sometimes make these mistakes I dont always remember that everything here is good that was—that was bad where Ive come from She looked down at her Viennese fan of eagle feathers and he saw that her lips trembled
Im so sorry he said impulsively but you ARE among friends here you know
Yes—I know Wherever I go I have that feeling Thats why I came home I want to forget everything else to become a complete American again like the Mingotts and Wellands and you and your delightful mother and all the other good people here tonight Ah heres May arriving and you will want to hurry away to her she added but without moving and her eyes turned back from the door to rest on the young mans face
The drawingrooms were beginning to fill up with afterdinner guests and following Madame Olenskas glance Archer saw May Welland entering with her mother In her dress of white and silver with a wreath of silver blossoms in her hair the tall girl looked like a Diana just alight from the chase
Oh said Archer I have so many rivals you see shes already surrounded Theres the Duke being introduced
Then stay with me a little longer Madame Olenska said in a low tone just touching his knee with her plumed fan It was the lightest touch but it thrilled him like a caress
Yes let me stay he answered in the same tone hardly knowing what he said but just then Mr van der Luyden came up followed by old Mr Urban Dagonet The Countess greeted them with her grave smile and Archer feeling his hosts admonitory glance on him rose and surrendered his seat
Madame Olenska held out her hand as if to bid him goodbye
Tomorrow then after five—I shall expect you she said and then turned back to make room for Mr Dagonet
Tomorrow— Archer heard himself repeating though there had been no engagement and during their talk she had given him no hint that she wished to see him again
As he moved away he saw Lawrence Lefferts tall and resplendent leading his wife up to be introduced and heard Gertrude Lefferts say as she beamed on the Countess with her large unperceiving smile But I think we used to go to dancingschool together when we were children— Behind her waiting their turn to name themselves to the Countess Archer noticed a number of the recalcitrant couples who had declined to meet her at Mrs Lovell Mingotts As Mrs Archer remarked when the van der Luydens chose they knew how to give a lesson The wonder was that they chose so seldom
The young man felt a touch on his arm and saw Mrs van der Luyden looking down on him from the pure eminence of black velvet and the family diamonds It was good of you dear Newland to devote yourself so unselfishly to Madame Olenska I told your cousin Henry he must really come to the rescue
He was aware of smiling at her vaguely and she added as if condescending to his natural shyness Ive never seen May looking lovelier The Duke thinks her the handsomest girl in the room
IX
The Countess Olenska had said after five and at half after the hour Newland Archer rang the bell of the peeling stucco house with a giant wisteria throttling its feeble castiron balcony which she had hired far down West Twentythird Street from the vagabond Medora
It was certainly a strange quarter to have settled in Small dressmakers birdstuffers and people who wrote were her nearest neighbours and further down the dishevelled street Archer recognised a dilapidated wooden house at the end of a paved path in which a writer and journalist called Winsett whom he used to come across now and then had mentioned that he lived Winsett did not invite people to his house but he had once pointed it out to Archer in the course of a nocturnal stroll and the latter had asked himself with a little shiver if the humanities were so meanly housed in other capitals
Madame Olenskas own dwelling was redeemed from the same appearance only by a little more paint about the windowframes and as Archer mustered its modest front he said to himself that the Polish Count must have robbed her of her fortune as well as of her illusions
The young man had spent an unsatisfactory day He had lunched with the Wellands hoping afterward to carry off May for a walk in the Park He wanted to have her to himself to tell her how enchanting she had looked the night before and how proud he was of her and to press her to hasten their marriage But Mrs Welland had firmly reminded him that the round of family visits was not half over and when he hinted at advancing the date of the wedding had raised reproachful eyebrows and sighed out Twelve dozen of everything—handembroidered—
Packed in the family landau they rolled from one tribal doorstep to another and Archer when the afternoons round was over parted from his betrothed with the feeling that he had been shown off like a wild animal cunningly trapped He supposed that his readings in anthropology caused him to take such a coarse view of what was after all a simple and natural demonstration of family feeling but when he remembered that the Wellands did not expect the wedding to take place till the following autumn and pictured what his life would be till then a dampness fell upon his spirit
Tomorrow Mrs Welland called after him well do the Chiverses and the Dallases and he perceived that she was going through their two families alphabetically and that they were only in the first quarter of the alphabet
He had meant to tell May of the Countess Olenskas request—her command rather—that he should call on her that afternoon but in the brief moments when they were alone he had had more pressing things to say Besides it struck him as a little absurd to allude to the matter He knew that May most particularly wanted him to be kind to her cousin was it not that wish which had hastened the announcement of their engagement It gave him an odd sensation to reflect that but for the Countesss arrival he might have been if not still a free man at least a man less irrevocably pledged But May had willed it so and he felt himself somehow relieved of further responsibility—and therefore at liberty if he chose to call on her cousin without telling her
As he stood on Madame Olenskas threshold curiosity was his uppermost feeling He was puzzled by the tone in which she had summoned him he concluded that she was less simple than she seemed
The door was opened by a swarthy foreignlooking maid with a prominent bosom under a gay neckerchief whom he vaguely fancied to be Sicilian She welcomed him with all her white teeth and answering his enquiries by a headshake of incomprehension led him through the narrow hall into a low firelit drawingroom The room was empty and she left him for an appreciable time to wonder whether she had gone to find her mistress or whether she had not understood what he was there for and thought it might be to wind the clock—of which he perceived that the only visible specimen had stopped He knew that the southern races communicated with each other in the language of pantomime and was mortified to find her shrugs and smiles so unintelligible At length she returned with a lamp and Archer having meanwhile put together a phrase out of Dante and Petrarch evoked the answer La signora e fuori ma verra subito which he took to mean Shes out—but youll soon see
What he saw meanwhile with the help of the lamp was the faded shadowy charm of a room unlike any room he had known He knew that the Countess Olenska had brought some of her possessions with her—bits of wreckage she called them—and these he supposed were represented by some small slender tables of dark wood a delicate little Greek bronze on the chimneypiece and a stretch of red damask nailed on the discoloured wallpaper behind a couple of Italianlooking pictures in old frames
Newland Archer prided himself on his knowledge of Italian art His boyhood had been saturated with Ruskin and he had read all the latest books John Addington Symonds Vernon Lees Euphorion the essays of P G Hamerton and a wonderful new volume called The Renaissance by Walter Pater He talked easily of Botticelli and spoke of Fra Angelico with a faint condescension But these pictures bewildered him for they were like nothing that he was accustomed to look at and therefore able to see when he travelled in Italy and perhaps also his powers of observation were impaired by the oddness of finding himself in this strange empty house where apparently no one expected him He was sorry that he had not told May Welland of Countess Olenskas request and a little disturbed by the thought that his betrothed might come in to see her cousin What would she think if she found him sitting there with the air of intimacy implied by waiting alone in the dusk at a ladys fireside
But since he had come he meant to wait and he sank into a chair and stretched his feet to the logs
It was odd to have summoned him in that way and then forgotten him but Archer felt more curious than mortified The atmosphere of the room was so different from any he had ever breathed that selfconsciousness vanished in the sense of adventure He had been before in drawingrooms hung with red damask with pictures of the Italian school what struck him was the way in which Medora Mansons shabby hired house with its blighted background of pampas grass and Rogers statuettes had by a turn of the hand and the skilful use of a few properties been transformed into something intimate foreign subtly suggestive of old romantic scenes and sentiments He tried to analyse the trick to find a clue to it in the way the chairs and tables were grouped in the fact that only two Jacqueminot roses of which nobody ever bought less than a dozen had been placed in the slender vase at his elbow and in the vague pervading perfume that was not what one put on handkerchiefs but rather like the scent of some faroff bazaar a smell made up of Turkish coffee and ambergris and dried roses
His mind wandered away to the question of what Mays drawingroom would look like He knew that Mr Welland who was behaving very handsomely already had his eye on a newly built house in East Thirtyninth Street The neighbourhood was thought remote and the house was built in a ghastly greenishyellow stone that the younger architects were beginning to employ as a protest against the brownstone of which the uniform hue coated New York like a cold chocolate sauce but the plumbing was perfect Archer would have liked to travel to put off the housing question but though the Wellands approved of an extended European honeymoon perhaps even a winter in Egypt they were firm as to the need of a house for the returning couple The young man felt that his fate was sealed for the rest of his life he would go up every evening between the castiron railings of that greenishyellow doorstep and pass through a Pompeian vestibule into a hall with a wainscoting of varnished yellow wood But beyond that his imagination could not travel He knew the drawingroom above had a bay window but he could not fancy how May would deal with it She submitted cheerfully to the purple satin and yellow tuftings of the Welland drawingroom to its sham Buhl tables and gilt vitrines full of modern Saxe He saw no reason to suppose that she would want anything different in her own house and his only comfort was to reflect that she would probably let him arrange his library as he pleased—which would be of course with sincere Eastlake furniture and the plain new bookcases without glass doors
The roundbosomed maid came in drew the curtains pushed back a log and said consolingly Verra—verra When she had gone Archer stood up and began to wander about Should he wait any longer His position was becoming rather foolish Perhaps he had misunderstood Madame Olenska—perhaps she had not invited him after all
Down the cobblestones of the quiet street came the ring of a steppers hoofs they stopped before the house and he caught the opening of a carriage door Parting the curtains he looked out into the early dusk A streetlamp faced him and in its light he saw Julius Beauforts compact English brougham drawn by a big roan and the banker descending from it and helping out Madame Olenska
Beaufort stood hat in hand saying something which his companion seemed to negative then they shook hands and he jumped into his carriage while she mounted the steps
When she entered the room she showed no surprise at seeing Archer there surprise seemed the emotion that she was least addicted to
How do you like my funny house she asked To me its like heaven
As she spoke she untied her little velvet bonnet and tossing it away with her long cloak stood looking at him with meditative eyes
Youve arranged it delightfully he rejoined alive to the flatness of the words but imprisoned in the conventional by his consuming desire to be simple and striking
Oh its a poor little place My relations despise it But at any rate its less gloomy than the van der Luydens
The words gave him an electric shock for few were the rebellious spirits who would have dared to call the stately home of the van der Luydens gloomy Those privileged to enter it shivered there and spoke of it as handsome But suddenly he was glad that she had given voice to the general shiver
Its delicious—what youve done here he repeated
I like the little house she admitted but I suppose what I like is the blessedness of its being here in my own country and my own town and then of being alone in it She spoke so low that he hardly heard the last phrase but in his awkwardness he took it up
You like so much to be alone
Yes as long as my friends keep me from feeling lonely She sat down near the fire said Nastasia will bring the tea presently and signed to him to return to his armchair adding I see youve already chosen your corner
Leaning back she folded her arms behind her head and looked at the fire under drooping lids
This is the hour I like best—dont you
A proper sense of his dignity caused him to answer I was afraid youd forgotten the hour Beaufort must have been very engrossing
She looked amused Why—have you waited long Mr Beaufort took me to see a number of houses—since it seems Im not to be allowed to stay in this one She appeared to dismiss both Beaufort and himself from her mind and went on Ive never been in a city where there seems to be such a feeling against living in des quartiers excentriques What does it matter where one lives Im told this street is respectable
Its not fashionable
Fashionable Do you all think so much of that Why not make ones own fashions But I suppose Ive lived too independently at any rate I want to do what you all do—I want to feel cared for and safe
He was touched as he had been the evening before when she spoke of her need of guidance
Thats what your friends want you to feel New Yorks an awfully safe place he added with a flash of sarcasm
Yes isnt it One feels that she cried missing the mockery Being here is like—like—being taken on a holiday when one has been a good little girl and done all ones lessons
The analogy was well meant but did not altogether please him He did not mind being flippant about New York but disliked to hear any one else take the same tone He wondered if she did not begin to see what a powerful engine it was and how nearly it had crushed her The Lovell Mingotts dinner patched up in extremis out of all sorts of social odds and ends ought to have taught her the narrowness of her escape but either she had been all along unaware of having skirted disaster or else she had lost sight of it in the triumph of the van der Luyden evening Archer inclined to the former theory he fancied that her New York was still completely undifferentiated and the conjecture nettled him
Last night he said New York laid itself out for you The van der Luydens do nothing by halves
No how kind they are It was such a nice party Every one seems to have such an esteem for them
The terms were hardly adequate she might have spoken in that way of a teaparty at the dear old Miss Lannings
The van der Luydens said Archer feeling himself pompous as he spoke are the most powerful influence in New York society Unfortunately—owing to her health—they receive very seldom
She unclasped her hands from behind her head and looked at him meditatively
Isnt that perhaps the reason
The reason—
For their great influence that they make themselves so rare
He coloured a little stared at her—and suddenly felt the penetration of the remark At a stroke she had pricked the van der Luydens and they collapsed He laughed and sacrificed them
Nastasia brought the tea with handleless Japanese cups and little covered dishes placing the tray on a low table
But youll explain these things to me—youll tell me all I ought to know Madame Olenska continued leaning forward to hand him his cup
Its you who are telling me opening my eyes to things Id looked at so long that Id ceased to see them
She detached a small gold cigarettecase from one of her bracelets held it out to him and took a cigarette herself On the chimney were long spills for lighting them
Ah then we can both help each other But I want help so much more You must tell me just what to do
It was on the tip of his tongue to reply Dont be seen driving about the streets with Beaufort— but he was being too deeply drawn into the atmosphere of the room which was her atmosphere and to give advice of that sort would have been like telling some one who was bargaining for attarofroses in Samarkand that one should always be provided with arctics for a New York winter New York seemed much farther off than Samarkand and if they were indeed to help each other she was rendering what might prove the first of their mutual services by making him look at his native city objectively Viewed thus as through the wrong end of a telescope it looked disconcertingly small and distant but then from Samarkand it would
A flame darted from the logs and she bent over the fire stretching her thin hands so close to it that a faint halo shone about the oval nails The light touched to russet the rings of dark hair escaping from her braids and made her pale face paler
There are plenty of people to tell you what to do Archer rejoined obscurely envious of them
Oh—all my aunts And my dear old Granny She considered the idea impartially Theyre all a little vexed with me for setting up for myself—poor Granny especially She wanted to keep me with her but I had to be free— He was impressed by this light way of speaking of the formidable Catherine and moved by the thought of what must have given Madame Olenska this thirst for even the loneliest kind of freedom But the idea of Beaufort gnawed him
I think I understand how you feel he said Still your family can advise you explain differences show you the way
She lifted her thin black eyebrows Is New York such a labyrinth I thought it so straight up and down—like Fifth Avenue And with all the cross streets numbered She seemed to guess his faint disapproval of this and added with the rare smile that enchanted her whole face If you knew how I like it for just THAT—the straightupanddownness and the big honest labels on everything
He saw his chance Everything may be labelled—but everybody is not
Perhaps I may simplify too much—but youll warn me if I do She turned from the fire to look at him There are only two people here who make me feel as if they understood what I mean and could explain things to me you and Mr Beaufort
Archer winced at the joining of the names and then with a quick readjustment understood sympathised and pitied So close to the powers of evil she must have lived that she still breathed more freely in their air But since she felt that he understood her also his business would be to make her see Beaufort as he really was with all he represented—and abhor it
He answered gently I understand But just at first dont let go of your old friends hands I mean the older women your Granny Mingott Mrs Welland Mrs van der Luyden They like and admire you—they want to help you
She shook her head and sighed Oh I know—I know But on condition that they dont hear anything unpleasant Aunt Welland put it in those very words when I tried Does no one want to know the truth here Mr Archer The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend She lifted her hands to her face and he saw her thin shoulders shaken by a sob
Madame Olenska—Oh dont Ellen he cried starting up and bending over her He drew down one of her hands clasping and chafing it like a childs while he murmured reassuring words but in a moment she freed herself and looked up at him with wet lashes
Does no one cry here either I suppose theres no need to in heaven she said straightening her loosened braids with a laugh and bending over the teakettle It was burnt into his consciousness that he had called her Ellen—called her so twice and that she had not noticed it Far down the inverted telescope he saw the faint white figure of May Welland—in New York
Suddenly Nastasia put her head in to say something in her rich Italian
Madame Olenska again with a hand at her hair uttered an exclamation of assent—a flashing Gia—gia—and the Duke of St Austrey entered piloting a tremendous blackwigged and redplumed lady in overflowing furs
My dear Countess Ive brought an old friend of mine to see you—Mrs Struthers She wasnt asked to the party last night and she wants to know you
The Duke beamed on the group and Madame Olenska advanced with a murmur of welcome toward the queer couple She seemed to have no idea how oddly matched they were nor what a liberty the Duke had taken in bringing his companion—and to do him justice as Archer perceived the Duke seemed as unaware of it himself
Of course I want to know you my dear cried Mrs Struthers in a round rolling voice that matched her bold feathers and her brazen wig I want to know everybody whos young and interesting and charming And the Duke tells me you like music—didnt you Duke Youre a pianist yourself I believe Well do you want to hear Sarasate play tomorrow evening at my house You know Ive something going on every Sunday evening—its the day when New York doesnt know what to do with itself and so I say to it Come and be amused And the Duke thought youd be tempted by Sarasate Youll find a number of your friends
Madame Olenskas face grew brilliant with pleasure How kind How good of the Duke to think of me She pushed a chair up to the teatable and Mrs Struthers sank into it delectably Of course I shall be too happy to come
Thats all right my dear And bring your young gentleman with you Mrs Struthers extended a hailfellow hand to Archer I cant put a name to you—but Im sure Ive met you—Ive met everybody here or in Paris or London Arent you in diplomacy All the diplomatists come to me You like music too Duke you must be sure to bring him
The Duke said Rather from the depths of his beard and Archer withdrew with a stiffly circular bow that made him feel as full of spine as a selfconscious schoolboy among careless and unnoticing elders
He was not sorry for the denouement of his visit he only wished it had come sooner and spared him a certain waste of emotion As he went out into the wintry night New York again became vast and imminent and May Welland the loveliest woman in it He turned into his florists to send her the daily box of liliesofthevalley which to his confusion he found he had forgotten that morning
As he wrote a word on his card and waited for an envelope he glanced about the embowered shop and his eye lit on a cluster of yellow roses He had never seen any as sungolden before and his first impulse was to send them to May instead of the lilies But they did not look like her—there was something too rich too strong in their fiery beauty In a sudden revulsion of mood and almost without knowing what he did he signed to the florist to lay the roses in another long box and slipped his card into a second envelope on which he wrote the name of the Countess Olenska then just as he was turning away he drew the card out again and left the empty envelope on the box
Theyll go at once he enquired pointing to the roses
The florist assured him that they would
X
The next day he persuaded May to escape for a walk in the Park after luncheon As was the custom in oldfashioned Episcopalian New York she usually accompanied her parents to church on Sunday afternoons but Mrs Welland condoned her truancy having that very morning won her over to the necessity of a long engagement with time to prepare a handembroidered trousseau containing the proper number of dozens
The day was delectable The bare vaulting of trees along the Mall was ceiled with lapis lazuli and arched above snow that shone like splintered crystals It was the weather to call out Mays radiance and she burned like a young maple in the frost Archer was proud of the glances turned on her and the simple joy of possessorship cleared away his underlying perplexities
Its so delicious—waking every morning to smell liliesofthevalley in ones room she said
Yesterday they came late I hadnt time in the morning—
But your remembering each day to send them makes me love them so much more than if youd given a standing order and they came every morning on the minute like ones musicteacher—as I know Gertrude Leffertss did for instance when she and Lawrence were engaged
Ah—they would laughed Archer amused at her keenness He looked sideways at her fruitlike cheek and felt rich and secure enough to add When I sent your lilies yesterday afternoon I saw some rather gorgeous yellow roses and packed them off to Madame Olenska Was that right
How dear of you Anything of that kind delights her Its odd she didnt mention it she lunched with us today and spoke of Mr Beauforts having sent her wonderful orchids and cousin Henry van der Luyden a whole hamper of carnations from Skuytercliff She seems so surprised to receive flowers Dont people send them in Europe She thinks it such a pretty custom
Oh well no wonder mine were overshadowed by Beauforts said Archer irritably Then he remembered that he had not put a card with the roses and was vexed at having spoken of them He wanted to say I called on your cousin yesterday but hesitated If Madame Olenska had not spoken of his visit it might seem awkward that he should Yet not to do so gave the affair an air of mystery that he disliked To shake off the question he began to talk of their own plans their future and Mrs Wellands insistence on a long engagement
If you call it long Isabel Chivers and Reggie were engaged for two years Grace and Thorley for nearly a year and a half Why arent we very well off as we are
It was the traditional maidenly interrogation and he felt ashamed of himself for finding it singularly childish No doubt she simply echoed what was said for her but she was nearing her twentysecond birthday and he wondered at what age nice women began to speak for themselves
Never if we wont let them I suppose he mused and recalled his mad outburst to Mr Sillerton Jackson Women ought to be as free as we are—
It would presently be his task to take the bandage from this young womans eyes and bid her look forth on the world But how many generations of the women who had gone to her making had descended bandaged to the family vault He shivered a little remembering some of the new ideas in his scientific books and the muchcited instance of the Kentucky cavefish which had ceased to develop eyes because they had no use for them What if when he had bidden May Welland to open hers they could only look out blankly at blankness
We might be much better off We might be altogether together—we might travel
Her face lit up That would be lovely she owned she would love to travel But her mother would not understand their wanting to do things so differently
As if the mere differently didnt account for it the wooer insisted
Newland Youre so original she exulted
His heart sank for he saw that he was saying all the things that young men in the same situation were expected to say and that she was making the answers that instinct and tradition taught her to make—even to the point of calling him original
Original Were all as like each other as those dolls cut out of the same folded paper Were like patterns stencilled on a wall Cant you and I strike out for ourselves May
He had stopped and faced her in the excitement of their discussion and her eyes rested on him with a bright unclouded admiration
Mercy—shall we elope she laughed
If you would—
You DO love me Newland Im so happy
But then—why not be happier
We cant behave like people in novels though can we
Why not—why not—why not
She looked a little bored by his insistence She knew very well that they couldnt but it was troublesome to have to produce a reason Im not clever enough to argue with you But that kind of thing is rather—vulgar isnt it she suggested relieved to have hit on a word that would assuredly extinguish the whole subject
Are you so much afraid then of being vulgar
She was evidently staggered by this Of course I should hate it—so would you she rejoined a trifle irritably
He stood silent beating his stick nervously against his boottop and feeling that she had indeed found the right way of closing the discussion she went on lightheartedly Oh did I tell you that I showed Ellen my ring She thinks it the most beautiful setting she ever saw Theres nothing like it in the rue de la Paix she said I do love you Newland for being so artistic
The next afternoon as Archer before dinner sat smoking sullenly in his study Janey wandered in on him He had failed to stop at his club on the way up from the office where he exercised the profession of the law in the leisurely manner common to welltodo New Yorkers of his class He was out of spirits and slightly out of temper and a haunting horror of doing the same thing every day at the same hour besieged his brain
Sameness—sameness he muttered the word running through his head like a persecuting tune as he saw the familiar tallhatted figures lounging behind the plateglass and because he usually dropped in at the club at that hour he had gone home instead He knew not only what they were likely to be talking about but the part each one would take in the discussion The Duke of course would be their principal theme though the appearance in Fifth Avenue of a goldenhaired lady in a small canarycoloured brougham with a pair of black cobs for which Beaufort was generally thought responsible would also doubtless be thoroughly gone into Such women as they were called were few in New York those driving their own carriages still fewer and the appearance of Miss Fanny Ring in Fifth Avenue at the fashionable hour had profoundly agitated society Only the day before her carriage had passed Mrs Lovell Mingotts and the latter had instantly rung the little bell at her elbow and ordered the coachman to drive her home What if it had happened to Mrs van der Luyden people asked each other with a shudder Archer could hear Lawrence Lefferts at that very hour holding forth on the disintegration of society
He raised his head irritably when his sister Janey entered and then quickly bent over his book Swinburnes Chastelard—just out as if he had not seen her She glanced at the writingtable heaped with books opened a volume of the Contes Drolatiques made a wry face over the archaic French and sighed What learned things you read
Well— he asked as she hovered Cassandralike before him
Mothers very angry
Angry With whom About what
Miss Sophy Jackson has just been here She brought word that her brother would come in after dinner she couldnt say very much because he forbade her to he wishes to give all the details himself Hes with cousin Louisa van der Luyden now
For heavens sake my dear girl try a fresh start It would take an omniscient Deity to know what youre talking about
Its not a time to be profane Newland Mother feels badly enough about your not going to church
With a groan he plunged back into his book
NEWLAND Do listen Your friend Madame Olenska was at Mrs Lemuel Strutherss party last night she went there with the Duke and Mr Beaufort
At the last clause of this announcement a senseless anger swelled the young mans breast To smother it he laughed Well what of it I knew she meant to
Janey paled and her eyes began to project You knew she meant to—and you didnt try to stop her To warn her
Stop her Warn her He laughed again Im not engaged to be married to the Countess Olenska The words had a fantastic sound in his own ears
Youre marrying into her family
Oh family—family he jeered
Newland—dont you care about Family
Not a brass farthing
Nor about what cousin Louisa van der Luyden will think
Not the half of one—if she thinks such old maids rubbish
Mother is not an old maid said his virgin sister with pinched lips
He felt like shouting back Yes she is and so are the van der Luydens and so we all are when it comes to being so much as brushed by the wingtip of Reality But he saw her long gentle face puckering into tears and felt ashamed of the useless pain he was inflicting
Hang Countess Olenska Dont be a goose Janey—Im not her keeper
No but you DID ask the Wellands to announce your engagement sooner so that we might all back her up and if it hadnt been for that cousin Louisa would never have invited her to the dinner for the Duke
Well—what harm was there in inviting her She was the bestlooking woman in the room she made the dinner a little less funereal than the usual van der Luyden banquet
You know cousin Henry asked her to please you he persuaded cousin Louisa And now theyre so upset that theyre going back to Skuytercliff tomorrow I think Newland youd better come down You dont seem to understand how mother feels
In the drawingroom Newland found his mother She raised a troubled brow from her needlework to ask Has Janey told you
Yes He tried to keep his tone as measured as her own But I cant take it very seriously
Not the fact of having offended cousin Louisa and cousin Henry
The fact that they can be offended by such a trifle as Countess Olenskas going to the house of a woman they consider common
Consider—
Well who is but who has good music and amuses people on Sunday evenings when the whole of New York is dying of inanition
Good music All I know is there was a woman who got up on a table and sang the things they sing at the places you go to in Paris There was smoking and champagne
Well—that kind of thing happens in other places and the world still goes on
I dont suppose dear youre really defending the French Sunday
Ive heard you often enough mother grumble at the English Sunday when weve been in London
New York is neither Paris nor London
Oh no its not her son groaned
You mean I suppose that society here is not as brilliant Youre right I daresay but we belong here and people should respect our ways when they come among us Ellen Olenska especially she came back to get away from the kind of life people lead in brilliant societies
Newland made no answer and after a moment his mother ventured I was going to put on my bonnet and ask you to take me to see cousin Louisa for a moment before dinner He frowned and she continued I thought you might explain to her what youve just said that society abroad is different that people are not as particular and that Madame Olenska may not have realised how we feel about such things It would be you know dear she added with an innocent adroitness in Madame Olenskas interest if you did
Dearest mother I really dont see how were concerned in the matter The Duke took Madame Olenska to Mrs Strutherss—in fact he brought Mrs Struthers to call on her I was there when they came If the van der Luydens want to quarrel with anybody the real culprit is under their own roof
Quarrel Newland did you ever know of cousin Henrys quarrelling Besides the Dukes his guest and a stranger too Strangers dont discriminate how should they Countess Olenska is a New Yorker and should have respected the feelings of New York
Well then if they must have a victim you have my leave to throw Madame Olenska to them cried her son exasperated I dont see myself—or you either—offering ourselves up to expiate her crimes
Oh of course you see only the Mingott side his mother answered in the sensitive tone that was her nearest approach to anger
The sad butler drew back the drawingroom portieres and announced Mr Henry van der Luyden
Mrs Archer dropped her needle and pushed her chair back with an agitated hand
Another lamp she cried to the retreating servant while Janey bent over to straighten her mothers cap
Mr van der Luydens figure loomed on the threshold and Newland Archer went forward to greet his cousin
We were just talking about you sir he said
Mr van der Luyden seemed overwhelmed by the announcement He drew off his glove to shake hands with the ladies and smoothed his tall hat shyly while Janey pushed an armchair forward and Archer continued And the Countess Olenska
Mrs Archer paled
Ah—a charming woman I have just been to see her said Mr van der Luyden complacency restored to his brow He sank into the chair laid his hat and gloves on the floor beside him in the oldfashioned way and went on She has a real gift for arranging flowers I had sent her a few carnations from Skuytercliff and I was astonished Instead of massing them in big bunches as our headgardener does she had scattered them about loosely here and there I cant say how The Duke had told me he said Go and see how cleverly shes arranged her drawingroom And she has I should really like to take Louisa to see her if the neighbourhood were not so—unpleasant
A dead silence greeted this unusual flow of words from Mr van der Luyden Mrs Archer drew her embroidery out of the basket into which she had nervously tumbled it and Newland leaning against the chimneyplace and twisting a hummingbirdfeather screen in his hand saw Janeys gaping countenance lit up by the coming of the second lamp
The fact is Mr van der Luyden continued stroking his long grey leg with a bloodless hand weighed down by the Patroons great signetring the fact is I dropped in to thank her for the very pretty note she wrote me about my flowers and also—but this is between ourselves of course—to give her a friendly warning about allowing the Duke to carry her off to parties with him I dont know if youve heard—
Mrs Archer produced an indulgent smile Has the Duke been carrying her off to parties
You know what these English grandees are Theyre all alike Louisa and I are very fond of our cousin—but its hopeless to expect people who are accustomed to the European courts to trouble themselves about our little republican distinctions The Duke goes where hes amused Mr van der Luyden paused but no one spoke Yes—it seems he took her with him last night to Mrs Lemuel Strutherss Sillerton Jackson has just been to us with the foolish story and Louisa was rather troubled So I thought the shortest way was to go straight to Countess Olenska and explain—by the merest hint you know—how we feel in New York about certain things I felt I might without indelicacy because the evening she dined with us she rather suggested rather let me see that she would be grateful for guidance And she WAS
Mr van der Luyden looked about the room with what would have been selfsatisfaction on features less purged of the vulgar passions On his face it became a mild benevolence which Mrs Archers countenance dutifully reflected
How kind you both are dear Henry—always Newland will particularly appreciate what you have done because of dear May and his new relations
She shot an admonitory glance at her son who said Immensely sir But I was sure youd like Madame Olenska
Mr van der Luyden looked at him with extreme gentleness I never ask to my house my dear Newland he said any one whom I do not like And so I have just told Sillerton Jackson With a glance at the clock he rose and added But Louisa will be waiting We are dining early to take the Duke to the Opera
After the portieres had solemnly closed behind their visitor a silence fell upon the Archer family
Gracious—how romantic at last broke explosively from Janey No one knew exactly what inspired her elliptic comments and her relations had long since given up trying to interpret them
Mrs Archer shook her head with a sigh Provided it all turns out for the best she said in the tone of one who knows how surely it will not Newland you must stay and see Sillerton Jackson when he comes this evening I really shant know what to say to him
Poor mother But he wont come— her son laughed stooping to kiss away her frown
XI
Some two weeks later Newland Archer sitting in abstracted idleness in his private compartment of the office of Letterblair Lamson and Low attorneys at law was summoned by the head of the firm
Old Mr Letterblair the accredited legal adviser of three generations of New York gentility throned behind his mahogany desk in evident perplexity As he stroked his closeclipped white whiskers and ran his hand through the rumpled grey locks above his jutting brows his disrespectful junior partner thought how much he looked like the Family Physician annoyed with a patient whose symptoms refuse to be classified
My dear sir— he always addressed Archer as sir—I have sent for you to go into a little matter a matter which for the moment I prefer not to mention either to Mr Skipworth or Mr Redwood The gentlemen he spoke of were the other senior partners of the firm for as was always the case with legal associations of old standing in New York all the partners named on the office letterhead were long since dead and Mr Letterblair for example was professionally speaking his own grandson
He leaned back in his chair with a furrowed brow For family reasons— he continued
Archer looked up
The Mingott family said Mr Letterblair with an explanatory smile and bow Mrs Manson Mingott sent for me yesterday Her granddaughter the Countess Olenska wishes to sue her husband for divorce Certain papers have been placed in my hands He paused and drummed on his desk In view of your prospective alliance with the family I should like to consult you—to consider the case with you—before taking any farther steps
Archer felt the blood in his temples He had seen the Countess Olenska only once since his visit to her and then at the Opera in the Mingott box During this interval she had become a less vivid and importunate image receding from his foreground as May Welland resumed her rightful place in it He had not heard her divorce spoken of since Janeys first random allusion to it and had dismissed the tale as unfounded gossip Theoretically the idea of divorce was almost as distasteful to him as to his mother and he was annoyed that Mr Letterblair no doubt prompted by old Catherine Mingott should be so evidently planning to draw him into the affair After all there were plenty of Mingott men for such jobs and as yet he was not even a Mingott by marriage
He waited for the senior partner to continue Mr Letterblair unlocked a drawer and drew out a packet If you will run your eye over these papers—
Archer frowned I beg your pardon sir but just because of the prospective relationship I should prefer your consulting Mr Skipworth or Mr Redwood
Mr Letterblair looked surprised and slightly offended It was unusual for a junior to reject such an opening
He bowed I respect your scruple sir but in this case I believe true delicacy requires you to do as I ask Indeed the suggestion is not mine but Mrs Manson Mingotts and her sons I have seen Lovell Mingott and also Mr Welland They all named you
Archer felt his temper rising He had been somewhat languidly drifting with events for the last fortnight and letting Mays fair looks and radiant nature obliterate the rather importunate pressure of the Mingott claims But this behest of old Mrs Mingotts roused him to a sense of what the clan thought they had the right to exact from a prospective soninlaw and he chafed at the role
Her uncles ought to deal with this he said
They have The matter has been gone into by the family They are opposed to the Countesss idea but she is firm and insists on a legal opinion
The young man was silent he had not opened the packet in his hand
Does she want to marry again
I believe it is suggested but she denies it
Then—
Will you oblige me Mr Archer by first looking through these papers Afterward when we have talked the case over I will give you my opinion
Archer withdrew reluctantly with the unwelcome documents Since their last meeting he had halfunconsciously collaborated with events in ridding himself of the burden of Madame Olenska His hour alone with her by the firelight had drawn them into a momentary intimacy on which the Duke of St Austreys intrusion with Mrs Lemuel Struthers and the Countesss joyous greeting of them had rather providentially broken Two days later Archer had assisted at the comedy of her reinstatement in the van der Luydens favour and had said to himself with a touch of tartness that a lady who knew how to thank allpowerful elderly gentlemen to such good purpose for a bunch of flowers did not need either the private consolations or the public championship of a young man of his small compass To look at the matter in this light simplified his own case and surprisingly furbished up all the dim domestic virtues He could not picture May Welland in whatever conceivable emergency hawking about her private difficulties and lavishing her confidences on strange men and she had never seemed to him finer or fairer than in the week that followed He had even yielded to her wish for a long engagement since she had found the one disarming answer to his plea for haste
You know when it comes to the point your parents have always let you have your way ever since you were a little girl he argued and she had answered with her clearest look Yes and thats what makes it so hard to refuse the very last thing theyll ever ask of me as a little girl
That was the old New York note that was the kind of answer he would like always to be sure of his wifes making If one had habitually breathed the New York air there were times when anything less crystalline seemed stifling
The papers he had retired to read did not tell him much in fact but they plunged him into an atmosphere in which he choked and spluttered They consisted mainly of an exchange of letters between Count Olenskis solicitors and a French legal firm to whom the Countess had applied for the settlement of her financial situation There was also a short letter from the Count to his wife after reading it Newland Archer rose jammed the papers back into their envelope and reentered Mr Letterblairs office
Here are the letters sir If you wish Ill see Madame Olenska he said in a constrained voice
Thank you—thank you Mr Archer Come and dine with me tonight if youre free and well go into the matter afterward in case you wish to call on our client tomorrow
Newland Archer walked straight home again that afternoon It was a winter evening of transparent clearness with an innocent young moon above the housetops and he wanted to fill his souls lungs with the pure radiance and not exchange a word with any one till he and Mr Letterblair were closeted together after dinner It was impossible to decide otherwise than he had done he must see Madame Olenska himself rather than let her secrets be bared to other eyes A great wave of compassion had swept away his indifference and impatience she stood before him as an exposed and pitiful figure to be saved at all costs from farther wounding herself in her mad plunges against fate
He remembered what she had told him of Mrs Wellands request to be spared whatever was unpleasant in her history and winced at the thought that it was perhaps this attitude of mind which kept the New York air so pure Are we only Pharisees after all he wondered puzzled by the effort to reconcile his instinctive disgust at human vileness with his equally instinctive pity for human frailty
For the first time he perceived how elementary his own principles had always been He passed for a young man who had not been afraid of risks and he knew that his secret loveaffair with poor silly Mrs Thorley Rushworth had not been too secret to invest him with a becoming air of adventure But Mrs Rushworth was that kind of woman foolish vain clandestine by nature and far more attracted by the secrecy and peril of the affair than by such charms and qualities as he possessed When the fact dawned on him it nearly broke his heart but now it seemed the redeeming feature of the case The affair in short had been of the kind that most of the young men of his age had been through and emerged from with calm consciences and an undisturbed belief in the abysmal distinction between the women one loved and respected and those one enjoyed—and pitied In this view they were sedulously abetted by their mothers aunts and other elderly female relatives who all shared Mrs Archers belief that when such things happened it was undoubtedly foolish of the man but somehow always criminal of the woman All the elderly ladies whom Archer knew regarded any woman who loved imprudently as necessarily unscrupulous and designing and mere simpleminded man as powerless in her clutches The only thing to do was to persuade him as early as possible to marry a nice girl and then trust to her to look after him
In the complicated old European communities Archer began to guess loveproblems might be less simple and less easily classified Rich and idle and ornamental societies must produce many more such situations and there might even be one in which a woman naturally sensitive and aloof would yet from the force of circumstances from sheer defencelessness and loneliness be drawn into a tie inexcusable by conventional standards
On reaching home he wrote a line to the Countess Olenska asking at what hour of the next day she could receive him and despatched it by a messengerboy who returned presently with a word to the effect that she was going to Skuytercliff the next morning to stay over Sunday with the van der Luydens but that he would find her alone that evening after dinner The note was written on a rather untidy halfsheet without date or address but her hand was firm and free He was amused at the idea of her weekending in the stately solitude of Skuytercliff but immediately afterward felt that there of all places she would most feel the chill of minds rigorously averted from the unpleasant
He was at Mr Letterblairs punctually at seven glad of the pretext for excusing himself soon after dinner He had formed his own opinion from the papers entrusted to him and did not especially want to go into the matter with his senior partner Mr Letterblair was a widower and they dined alone copiously and slowly in a dark shabby room hung with yellowing prints of The Death of Chatham and The Coronation of Napoleon On the sideboard between fluted Sheraton knifecases stood a decanter of Haut Brion and another of the old Lanning port the gift of a client which the wastrel Tom Lanning had sold off a year or two before his mysterious and discreditable death in San Francisco—an incident less publicly humiliating to the family than the sale of the cellar
After a velvety oyster soup came shad and cucumbers then a young broiled turkey with corn fritters followed by a canvasback with currant jelly and a celery mayonnaise Mr Letterblair who lunched on a sandwich and tea dined deliberately and deeply and insisted on his guests doing the same Finally when the closing rites had been accomplished the cloth was removed cigars were lit and Mr Letterblair leaning back in his chair and pushing the port westward said spreading his back agreeably to the coal fire behind him The whole family are against a divorce And I think rightly
Archer instantly felt himself on the other side of the argument But why sir If there ever was a case—
Well—whats the use SHES here—hes there the Atlantics between them Shell never get back a dollar more of her money than what hes voluntarily returned to her their damned heathen marriage settlements take precious good care of that As things go over there Olenskis acted generously he might have turned her out without a penny
The young man knew this and was silent
I understand though Mr Letterblair continued that she attaches no importance to the money Therefore as the family say why not let well enough alone
Archer had gone to the house an hour earlier in full agreement with Mr Letterblairs view but put into words by this selfish wellfed and supremely indifferent old man it suddenly became the Pharisaic voice of a society wholly absorbed in barricading itself against the unpleasant
I think thats for her to decide
Hm—have you considered the consequences if she decides for divorce
You mean the threat in her husbands letter What weight would that carry Its no more than the vague charge of an angry blackguard
Yes but it might make some unpleasant talk if he really defends the suit
Unpleasant— said Archer explosively
Mr Letterblair looked at him from under enquiring eyebrows and the young man aware of the uselessness of trying to explain what was in his mind bowed acquiescently while his senior continued Divorce is always unpleasant
You agree with me Mr Letterblair resumed after a waiting silence
Naturally said Archer
Well then I may count on you the Mingotts may count on you to use your influence against the idea
Archer hesitated I cant pledge myself till Ive seen the Countess Olenska he said at length
Mr Archer I dont understand you Do you want to marry into a family with a scandalous divorcesuit hanging over it
I dont think that has anything to do with the case
Mr Letterblair put down his glass of port and fixed on his young partner a cautious and apprehensive gaze
Archer understood that he ran the risk of having his mandate withdrawn and for some obscure reason he disliked the prospect Now that the job had been thrust on him he did not propose to relinquish it and to guard against the possibility he saw that he must reassure the unimaginative old man who was the legal conscience of the Mingotts
You may be sure sir that I shant commit myself till Ive reported to you what I meant was that Id rather not give an opinion till Ive heard what Madame Olenska has to say
Mr Letterblair nodded approvingly at an excess of caution worthy of the best New York tradition and the young man glancing at his watch pleaded an engagement and took leave
XII
Oldfashioned New York dined at seven and the habit of afterdinner calls though derided in Archers set still generally prevailed As the young man strolled up Fifth Avenue from Waverley Place the long thoroughfare was deserted but for a group of carriages standing before the Reggie Chiverses where there was a dinner for the Duke and the occasional figure of an elderly gentleman in heavy overcoat and muffler ascending a brownstone doorstep and disappearing into a gaslit hall Thus as Archer crossed Washington Square he remarked that old Mr du Lac was calling on his cousins the Dagonets and turning down the corner of West Tenth Street he saw Mr Skipworth of his own firm obviously bound on a visit to the Miss Lannings A little farther up Fifth Avenue Beaufort appeared on his doorstep darkly projected against a blaze of light descended to his private brougham and rolled away to a mysterious and probably unmentionable destination It was not an Opera night and no one was giving a party so that Beauforts outing was undoubtedly of a clandestine nature Archer connected it in his mind with a little house beyond Lexington Avenue in which beribboned window curtains and flowerboxes had recently appeared and before whose newly painted door the canarycoloured brougham of Miss Fanny Ring was frequently seen to wait
Beyond the small and slippery pyramid which composed Mrs Archers world lay the almost unmapped quarter inhabited by artists musicians and people who wrote These scattered fragments of humanity had never shown any desire to be amalgamated with the social structure In spite of odd ways they were said to be for the most part quite respectable but they preferred to keep to themselves Medora Manson in her prosperous days had inaugurated a literary salon but it had soon died out owing to the reluctance of the literary to frequent it
Others had made the same attempt and there was a household of Blenkers—an intense and voluble mother and three blowsy daughters who imitated her—where one met Edwin Booth and Patti and William Winter and the new Shakespearian actor George Rignold and some of the magazine editors and musical and literary critics
Mrs Archer and her group felt a certain timidity concerning these persons They were odd they were uncertain they had things one didnt know about in the background of their lives and minds Literature and art were deeply respected in the Archer set and Mrs Archer was always at pains to tell her children how much more agreeable and cultivated society had been when it included such figures as Washington Irving FitzGreene Halleck and the poet of The Culprit Fay The most celebrated authors of that generation had been gentlemen perhaps the unknown persons who succeeded them had gentlemanly sentiments but their origin their appearance their hair their intimacy with the stage and the Opera made any old New York criterion inapplicable to them
When I was a girl Mrs Archer used to say we knew everybody between the Battery and Canal Street and only the people one knew had carriages It was perfectly easy to place any one then now one cant tell and I prefer not to try
Only old Catherine Mingott with her absence of moral prejudices and almost parvenu indifference to the subtler distinctions might have bridged the abyss but she had never opened a book or looked at a picture and cared for music only because it reminded her of gala nights at the Italiens in the days of her triumph at the Tuileries Possibly Beaufort who was her match in daring would have succeeded in bringing about a fusion but his grand house and silkstockinged footmen were an obstacle to informal sociability Moreover he was as illiterate as old Mrs Mingott and considered fellows who wrote as the mere paid purveyors of rich mens pleasures and no one rich enough to influence his opinion had ever questioned it
Newland Archer had been aware of these things ever since he could remember and had accepted them as part of the structure of his universe He knew that there were societies where painters and poets and novelists and men of science and even great actors were as sought after as Dukes he had often pictured to himself what it would have been to live in the intimacy of drawingrooms dominated by the talk of Merimee whose Lettres a une Inconnue was one of his inseparables of Thackeray Browning or William Morris But such things were inconceivable in New York and unsettling to think of Archer knew most of the fellows who wrote the musicians and the painters he met them at the Century or at the little musical and theatrical clubs that were beginning to come into existence He enjoyed them there and was bored with them at the Blenkers where they were mingled with fervid and dowdy women who passed them about like captured curiosities and even after his most exciting talks with Ned Winsett he always came away with the feeling that if his world was small so was theirs and that the only way to enlarge either was to reach a stage of manners where they would naturally merge
He was reminded of this by trying to picture the society in which the Countess Olenska had lived and suffered and also—perhaps—tasted mysterious joys He remembered with what amusement she had told him that her grandmother Mingott and the Wellands objected to her living in a Bohemian quarter given over to people who wrote It was not the peril but the poverty that her family disliked but that shade escaped her and she supposed they considered literature compromising
She herself had no fears of it and the books scattered about her drawingroom a part of the house in which books were usually supposed to be out of place though chiefly works of fiction had whetted Archers interest with such new names as those of Paul Bourget Huysmans and the Goncourt brothers Ruminating on these things as he approached her door he was once more conscious of the curious way in which she reversed his values and of the need of thinking himself into conditions incredibly different from any that he knew if he were to be of use in her present difficulty
Nastasia opened the door smiling mysteriously On the bench in the hall lay a sablelined overcoat a folded opera hat of dull silk with a gold J B on the lining and a white silk muffler there was no mistaking the fact that these costly articles were the property of Julius Beaufort
Archer was angry so angry that he came near scribbling a word on his card and going away then he remembered that in writing to Madame Olenska he had been kept by excess of discretion from saying that he wished to see her privately He had therefore no one but himself to blame if she had opened her doors to other visitors and he entered the drawingroom with the dogged determination to make Beaufort feel himself in the way and to outstay him
The banker stood leaning against the mantelshelf which was draped with an old embroidery held in place by brass candelabra containing church candies of yellowish wax He had thrust his chest out supporting his shoulders against the mantel and resting his weight on one large patentleather foot As Archer entered he was smiling and looking down on his hostess who sat on a sofa placed at right angles to the chimney A table banked with flowers formed a screen behind it and against the orchids and azaleas which the young man recognised as tributes from the Beaufort hothouses Madame Olenska sat halfreclined her head propped on a hand and her wide sleeve leaving the arm bare to the elbow
It was usual for ladies who received in the evenings to wear what were called simple dinner dresses a closefitting armour of whaleboned silk slightly open in the neck with lace ruffles filling in the crack and tight sleeves with a flounce uncovering just enough wrist to show an Etruscan gold bracelet or a velvet band But Madame Olenska heedless of tradition was attired in a long robe of red velvet bordered about the chin and down the front with glossy black fur Archer remembered on his last visit to Paris seeing a portrait by the new painter Carolus Duran whose pictures were the sensation of the Salon in which the lady wore one of these bold sheathlike robes with her chin nestling in fur There was something perverse and provocative in the notion of fur worn in the evening in a heated drawingroom and in the combination of a muffled throat and bare arms but the effect was undeniably pleasing
Lord love us—three whole days at Skuytercliff Beaufort was saying in his loud sneering voice as Archer entered Youd better take all your furs and a hotwaterbottle
Why Is the house so cold she asked holding out her left hand to Archer in a way mysteriously suggesting that she expected him to kiss it
No but the missus is said Beaufort nodding carelessly to the young man
But I thought her so kind She came herself to invite me Granny says I must certainly go
Granny would of course And I say its a shame youre going to miss the little oyster supper Id planned for you at Delmonicos next Sunday with Campanini and Scalchi and a lot of jolly people
She looked doubtfully from the banker to Archer
Ah—that does tempt me Except the other evening at Mrs Strutherss Ive not met a single artist since Ive been here
What kind of artists I know one or two painters very good fellows that I could bring to see you if youd allow me said Archer boldly
Painters Are there painters in New York asked Beaufort in a tone implying that there could be none since he did not buy their pictures and Madame Olenska said to Archer with her grave smile That would be charming But I was really thinking of dramatic artists singers actors musicians My husbands house was always full of them
She said the words my husband as if no sinister associations were connected with them and in a tone that seemed almost to sigh over the lost delights of her married life Archer looked at her perplexedly wondering if it were lightness or dissimulation that enabled her to touch so easily on the past at the very moment when she was risking her reputation in order to break with it
I do think she went on addressing both men that the imprevu adds to ones enjoyment Its perhaps a mistake to see the same people every day
Its confoundedly dull anyhow New York is dying of dullness Beaufort grumbled And when I try to liven it up for you you go back on me Come—think better of it Sunday is your last chance for Campanini leaves next week for Baltimore and Philadelphia and Ive a private room and a Steinway and theyll sing all night for me
How delicious May I think it over and write to you tomorrow morning
She spoke amiably yet with the least hint of dismissal in her voice Beaufort evidently felt it and being unused to dismissals stood staring at her with an obstinate line between his eyes
Why not now
Its too serious a question to decide at this late hour
Do you call it late
She returned his glance coolly Yes because I have still to talk business with Mr Archer for a little while
Ah Beaufort snapped There was no appeal from her tone and with a slight shrug he recovered his composure took her hand which he kissed with a practised air and calling out from the threshold I say Newland if you can persuade the Countess to stop in town of course youre included in the supper left the room with his heavy important step
For a moment Archer fancied that Mr Letterblair must have told her of his coming but the irrelevance of her next remark made him change his mind
You know painters then You live in their milieu she asked her eyes full of interest
Oh not exactly I dont know that the arts have a milieu here any of them theyre more like a very thinly settled outskirt
But you care for such things
Immensely When Im in Paris or London I never miss an exhibition I try to keep up
She looked down at the tip of the little satin boot that peeped from her long draperies
I used to care immensely too my life was full of such things But now I want to try not to
You want to try not to
Yes I want to cast off all my old life to become just like everybody else here
Archer reddened Youll never be like everybody else he said
She raised her straight eyebrows a little Ah dont say that If you knew how I hate to be different
Her face had grown as sombre as a tragic mask She leaned forward clasping her knee in her thin hands and looking away from him into remote dark distances
I want to get away from it all she insisted
He waited a moment and cleared his throat I know Mr Letterblair has told me
Ah
Thats the reason Ive come He asked me to—you see Im in the firm
She looked slightly surprised and then her eyes brightened You mean you can manage it for me I can talk to you instead of Mr Letterblair Oh that will be so much easier
Her tone touched him and his confidence grew with his selfsatisfaction He perceived that she had spoken of business to Beaufort simply to get rid of him and to have routed Beaufort was something of a triumph
I am here to talk about it he repeated
She sat silent her head still propped by the arm that rested on the back of the sofa Her face looked pale and extinguished as if dimmed by the rich red of her dress She struck Archer of a sudden as a pathetic and even pitiful figure
Now were coming to hard facts he thought conscious in himself of the same instinctive recoil that he had so often criticised in his mother and her contemporaries How little practice he had had in dealing with unusual situations Their very vocabulary was unfamiliar to him and seemed to belong to fiction and the stage In face of what was coming he felt as awkward and embarrassed as a boy
After a pause Madame Olenska broke out with unexpected vehemence I want to be free I want to wipe out all the past
I understand that
Her face warmed Then youll help me
First— he hesitated—perhaps I ought to know a little more
She seemed surprised You know about my husband—my life with him
He made a sign of assent
Well—then—what more is there In this country are such things tolerated Im a Protestant—our church does not forbid divorce in such cases
Certainly not
They were both silent again and Archer felt the spectre of Count Olenskis letter grimacing hideously between them The letter filled only half a page and was just what he had described it to be in speaking of it to Mr Letterblair the vague charge of an angry blackguard But how much truth was behind it Only Count Olenskis wife could tell
Ive looked through the papers you gave to Mr Letterblair he said at length
Well—can there be anything more abominable
No
She changed her position slightly screening her eyes with her lifted hand
Of course you know Archer continued that if your husband chooses to fight the case—as he threatens to—
Yes—
He can say things—things that might be unpl—might be disagreeable to you say them publicly so that they would get about and harm you even if—
If—
I mean no matter how unfounded they were
She paused for a long interval so long that not wishing to keep his eyes on her shaded face he had time to imprint on his mind the exact shape of her other hand the one on her knee and every detail of the three rings on her fourth and fifth fingers among which he noticed a wedding ring did not appear
What harm could such accusations even if he made them publicly do me here
It was on his lips to exclaim My poor child—far more harm than anywhere else Instead he answered in a voice that sounded in his ears like Mr Letterblairs New York society is a very small world compared with the one youve lived in And its ruled in spite of appearances by a few people with—well rather oldfashioned ideas
She said nothing and he continued Our ideas about marriage and divorce are particularly oldfashioned Our legislation favours divorce—our social customs dont
Never
Well—not if the woman however injured however irreproachable has appearances in the least degree against her has exposed herself by any unconventional action to—to offensive insinuations—
She drooped her head a little lower and he waited again intensely hoping for a flash of indignation or at least a brief cry of denial None came
A little travelling clock ticked purringly at her elbow and a log broke in two and sent up a shower of sparks The whole hushed and brooding room seemed to be waiting silently with Archer
Yes she murmured at length thats what my family tell me
He winced a little Its not unnatural—
OUR family she corrected herself and Archer coloured For youll be my cousin soon she continued gently
I hope so
And you take their view
He stood up at this wandered across the room stared with void eyes at one of the pictures against the old red damask and came back irresolutely to her side How could he say Yes if what your husband hints is true or if youve no way of disproving it
Sincerely— she interjected as he was about to speak
He looked down into the fire Sincerely then—what should you gain that would compensate for the possibility—the certainty—of a lot of beastly talk
But my freedom—is that nothing
It flashed across him at that instant that the charge in the letter was true and that she hoped to marry the partner of her guilt How was he to tell her that if she really cherished such a plan the laws of the State were inexorably opposed to it The mere suspicion that the thought was in her mind made him feel harshly and impatiently toward her But arent you as free as air as it is he returned Who can touch you Mr Letterblair tells me the financial question has been settled—
Oh yes she said indifferently
Well then is it worth while to risk what may be infinitely disagreeable and painful Think of the newspapers—their vileness Its all stupid and narrow and unjust—but one cant make over society
No she acquiesced and her tone was so faint and desolate that he felt a sudden remorse for his own hard thoughts
The individual in such cases is nearly always sacrificed to what is supposed to be the collective interest people cling to any convention that keeps the family together—protects the children if there are any he rambled on pouring out all the stock phrases that rose to his lips in his intense desire to cover over the ugly reality which her silence seemed to have laid bare Since she would not or could not say the one word that would have cleared the air his wish was not to let her feel that he was trying to probe into her secret Better keep on the surface in the prudent old New York way than risk uncovering a wound he could not heal
Its my business you know he went on to help you to see these things as the people who are fondest of you see them The Mingotts the Wellands the van der Luydens all your friends and relations if I didnt show you honestly how they judge such questions it wouldnt be fair of me would it He spoke insistently almost pleading with her in his eagerness to cover up that yawning silence
She said slowly No it wouldnt be fair
The fire had crumbled down to greyness and one of the lamps made a gurgling appeal for attention Madame Olenska rose wound it up and returned to the fire but without resuming her seat
Her remaining on her feet seemed to signify that there was nothing more for either of them to say and Archer stood up also
Very well I will do what you wish she said abruptly The blood rushed to his forehead and taken aback by the suddenness of her surrender he caught her two hands awkwardly in his
I—I do want to help you he said
You do help me Good night my cousin
He bent and laid his lips on her hands which were cold and lifeless She drew them away and he turned to the door found his coat and hat under the faint gaslight of the hall and plunged out into the winter night bursting with the belated eloquence of the inarticulate
XIII
It was a crowded night at Wallacks theatre
The play was The Shaughraun with Dion Boucicault in the title role and Harry Montague and Ada Dyas as the lovers The popularity of the admirable English company was at its height and the Shaughraun always packed the house In the galleries the enthusiasm was unreserved in the stalls and boxes people smiled a little at the hackneyed sentiments and claptrap situations and enjoyed the play as much as the galleries did
There was one episode in particular that held the house from floor to ceiling It was that in which Harry Montague after a sad almost monosyllabic scene of parting with Miss Dyas bade her goodbye and turned to go The actress who was standing near the mantelpiece and looking down into the fire wore a gray cashmere dress without fashionable loopings or trimmings moulded to her tall figure and flowing in long lines about her feet Around her neck was a narrow black velvet ribbon with the ends falling down her back
When her wooer turned from her she rested her arms against the mantelshelf and bowed her face in her hands On the threshold he paused to look at her then he stole back lifted one of the ends of velvet ribbon kissed it and left the room without her hearing him or changing her attitude And on this silent parting the curtain fell
It was always for the sake of that particular scene that Newland Archer went to see The Shaughraun He thought the adieux of Montague and Ada Dyas as fine as anything he had ever seen Croisette and Bressant do in Paris or Madge Robertson and Kendal in London in its reticence its dumb sorrow it moved him more than the most famous histrionic outpourings
On the evening in question the little scene acquired an added poignancy by reminding him—he could not have said why—of his leavetaking from Madame Olenska after their confidential talk a week or ten days earlier
It would have been as difficult to discover any resemblance between the two situations as between the appearance of the persons concerned Newland Archer could not pretend to anything approaching the young English actors romantic good looks and Miss Dyas was a tall redhaired woman of monumental build whose pale and pleasantly ugly face was utterly unlike Ellen Olenskas vivid countenance Nor were Archer and Madame Olenska two lovers parting in heartbroken silence they were client and lawyer separating after a talk which had given the lawyer the worst possible impression of the clients case Wherein then lay the resemblance that made the young mans heart beat with a kind of retrospective excitement It seemed to be in Madame Olenskas mysterious faculty of suggesting tragic and moving possibilities outside the daily run of experience She had hardly ever said a word to him to produce this impression but it was a part of her either a projection of her mysterious and outlandish background or of something inherently dramatic passionate and unusual in herself Archer had always been inclined to think that chance and circumstance played a small part in shaping peoples lots compared with their innate tendency to have things happen to them This tendency he had felt from the first in Madame Olenska The quiet almost passive young woman struck him as exactly the kind of person to whom things were bound to happen no matter how much she shrank from them and went out of her way to avoid them The exciting fact was her having lived in an atmosphere so thick with drama that her own tendency to provoke it had apparently passed unperceived It was precisely the odd absence of surprise in her that gave him the sense of her having been plucked out of a very maelstrom the things she took for granted gave the measure of those she had rebelled against
Archer had left her with the conviction that Count Olenskis accusation was not unfounded The mysterious person who figured in his wifes past as the secretary had probably not been unrewarded for his share in her escape The conditions from which she had fled were intolerable past speaking of past believing she was young she was frightened she was desperate—what more natural than that she should be grateful to her rescuer The pity was that her gratitude put her in the laws eyes and the worlds on a par with her abominable husband Archer had made her understand this as he was bound to do he had also made her understand that simplehearted kindly New York on whose larger charity she had apparently counted was precisely the place where she could least hope for indulgence
To have to make this fact plain to her—and to witness her resigned acceptance of it—had been intolerably painful to him He felt himself drawn to her by obscure feelings of jealousy and pity as if her dumblyconfessed error had put her at his mercy humbling yet endearing her He was glad it was to him she had revealed her secret rather than to the cold scrutiny of Mr Letterblair or the embarrassed gaze of her family He immediately took it upon himself to assure them both that she had given up her idea of seeking a divorce basing her decision on the fact that she had understood the uselessness of the proceeding and with infinite relief they had all turned their eyes from the unpleasantness she had spared them
I was sure Newland would manage it Mrs Welland had said proudly of her future soninlaw and old Mrs Mingott who had summoned him for a confidential interview had congratulated him on his cleverness and added impatiently Silly goose I told her myself what nonsense it was Wanting to pass herself off as Ellen Mingott and an old maid when she has the luck to be a married woman and a Countess
These incidents had made the memory of his last talk with Madame Olenska so vivid to the young man that as the curtain fell on the parting of the two actors his eyes filled with tears and he stood up to leave the theatre
In doing so he turned to the side of the house behind him and saw the lady of whom he was thinking seated in a box with the Beauforts Lawrence Lefferts and one or two other men He had not spoken with her alone since their evening together and had tried to avoid being with her in company but now their eyes met and as Mrs Beaufort recognised him at the same time and made her languid little gesture of invitation it was impossible not to go into the box
Beaufort and Lefferts made way for him and after a few words with Mrs Beaufort who always preferred to look beautiful and not have to talk Archer seated himself behind Madame Olenska There was no one else in the box but Mr Sillerton Jackson who was telling Mrs Beaufort in a confidential undertone about Mrs Lemuel Strutherss last Sunday reception where some people reported that there had been dancing Under cover of this circumstantial narrative to which Mrs Beaufort listened with her perfect smile and her head at just the right angle to be seen in profile from the stalls Madame Olenska turned and spoke in a low voice
Do you think she asked glancing toward the stage he will send her a bunch of yellow roses tomorrow morning
Archer reddened and his heart gave a leap of surprise He had called only twice on Madame Olenska and each time he had sent her a box of yellow roses and each time without a card She had never before made any allusion to the flowers and he supposed she had never thought of him as the sender Now her sudden recognition of the gift and her associating it with the tender leavetaking on the stage filled him with an agitated pleasure
I was thinking of that too—I was going to leave the theatre in order to take the picture away with me he said
To his surprise her colour rose reluctantly and duskily She looked down at the motherofpearl operaglass in her smoothly gloved hands and said after a pause What do you do while May is away
I stick to my work he answered faintly annoyed by the question
In obedience to a longestablished habit the Wellands had left the previous week for St Augustine where out of regard for the supposed susceptibility of Mr Wellands bronchial tubes they always spent the latter part of the winter Mr Welland was a mild and silent man with no opinions but with many habits With these habits none might interfere and one of them demanded that his wife and daughter should always go with him on his annual journey to the south To preserve an unbroken domesticity was essential to his peace of mind he would not have known where his hairbrushes were or how to provide stamps for his letters if Mrs Welland had not been there to tell him
As all the members of the family adored each other and as Mr Welland was the central object of their idolatry it never occurred to his wife and May to let him go to St Augustine alone and his sons who were both in the law and could not leave New York during the winter always joined him for Easter and travelled back with him
It was impossible for Archer to discuss the necessity of Mays accompanying her father The reputation of the Mingotts family physician was largely based on the attack of pneumonia which Mr Welland had never had and his insistence on St Augustine was therefore inflexible Originally it had been intended that Mays engagement should not be announced till her return from Florida and the fact that it had been made known sooner could not be expected to alter Mr Wellands plans Archer would have liked to join the travellers and have a few weeks of sunshine and boating with his betrothed but he too was bound by custom and conventions Little arduous as his professional duties were he would have been convicted of frivolity by the whole Mingott clan if he had suggested asking for a holiday in midwinter and he accepted Mays departure with the resignation which he perceived would have to be one of the principal constituents of married life
He was conscious that Madame Olenska was looking at him under lowered lids I have done what you wished—what you advised she said abruptly
Ah—Im glad he returned embarrassed by her broaching the subject at such a moment
I understand—that you were right she went on a little breathlessly but sometimes life is difficult perplexing
I know
And I wanted to tell you that I DO feel you were right and that Im grateful to you she ended lifting her operaglass quickly to her eyes as the door of the box opened and Beauforts resonant voice broke in on them
Archer stood up and left the box and the theatre
Only the day before he had received a letter from May Welland in which with characteristic candour she had asked him to be kind to Ellen in their absence She likes you and admires you so much—and you know though she doesnt show it shes still very lonely and unhappy I dont think Granny understands her or uncle Lovell Mingott either they really think shes much worldlier and fonder of society than she is And I can quite see that New York must seem dull to her though the family wont admit it I think shes been used to lots of things we havent got wonderful music and picture shows and celebrities—artists and authors and all the clever people you admire Granny cant understand her wanting anything but lots of dinners and clothes—but I can see that youre almost the only person in New York who can talk to her about what she really cares for
His wise May—how he had loved her for that letter But he had not meant to act on it he was too busy to begin with and he did not care as an engaged man to play too conspicuously the part of Madame Olenskas champion He had an idea that she knew how to take care of herself a good deal better than the ingenuous May imagined She had Beaufort at her feet Mr van der Luyden hovering above her like a protecting deity and any number of candidates Lawrence Lefferts among them waiting their opportunity in the middle distance Yet he never saw her or exchanged a word with her without feeling that after all Mays ingenuousness almost amounted to a gift of divination Ellen Olenska was lonely and she was unhappy
XIV
As he came out into the lobby Archer ran across his friend Ned Winsett the only one among what Janey called his clever people with whom he cared to probe into things a little deeper than the average level of club and chophouse banter
He had caught sight across the house of Winsetts shabby roundshouldered back and had once noticed his eyes turned toward the Beaufort box The two men shook hands and Winsett proposed a bock at a little German restaurant around the corner Archer who was not in the mood for the kind of talk they were likely to get there declined on the plea that he had work to do at home and Winsett said Oh well so have I for that matter and Ill be the Industrious Apprentice too
They strolled along together and presently Winsett said Look here what Im really after is the name of the dark lady in that swell box of yours—with the Beauforts wasnt she The one your friend Lefferts seems so smitten by
Archer he could not have said why was slightly annoyed What the devil did Ned Winsett want with Ellen Olenskas name And above all why did he couple it with Leffertss It was unlike Winsett to manifest such curiosity but after all Archer remembered he was a journalist
Its not for an interview I hope he laughed
Well—not for the press just for myself Winsett rejoined The fact is shes a neighbour of mine—queer quarter for such a beauty to settle in—and shes been awfully kind to my little boy who fell down her area chasing his kitten and gave himself a nasty cut She rushed in bareheaded carrying him in her arms with his knee all beautifully bandaged and was so sympathetic and beautiful that my wife was too dazzled to ask her name
A pleasant glow dilated Archers heart There was nothing extraordinary in the tale any woman would have done as much for a neighbours child But it was just like Ellen he felt to have rushed in bareheaded carrying the boy in her arms and to have dazzled poor Mrs Winsett into forgetting to ask who she was
That is the Countess Olenska—a granddaughter of old Mrs Mingotts
Whew—a Countess whistled Ned Winsett Well I didnt know Countesses were so neighbourly Mingotts aint
They would be if youd let them
Ah well— It was their old interminable argument as to the obstinate unwillingness of the clever people to frequent the fashionable and both men knew that there was no use in prolonging it
I wonder Winsett broke off how a Countess happens to live in our slum
Because she doesnt care a hang about where she lives—or about any of our little social signposts said Archer with a secret pride in his own picture of her
Hm—been in bigger places I suppose the other commented Well heres my corner
He slouched off across Broadway and Archer stood looking after him and musing on his last words
Ned Winsett had those flashes of penetration they were the most interesting thing about him and always made Archer wonder why they had allowed him to accept failure so stolidly at an age when most men are still struggling
Archer had known that Winsett had a wife and child but he had never seen them The two men always met at the Century or at some haunt of journalists and theatrical people such as the restaurant where Winsett had proposed to go for a bock He had given Archer to understand that his wife was an invalid which might be true of the poor lady or might merely mean that she was lacking in social gifts or in evening clothes or in both Winsett himself had a savage abhorrence of social observances Archer who dressed in the evening because he thought it cleaner and more comfortable to do so and who had never stopped to consider that cleanliness and comfort are two of the costliest items in a modest budget regarded Winsetts attitude as part of the boring Bohemian pose that always made fashionable people who changed their clothes without talking about it and were not forever harping on the number of servants one kept seem so much simpler and less selfconscious than the others Nevertheless he was always stimulated by Winsett and whenever he caught sight of the journalists lean bearded face and melancholy eyes he would rout him out of his corner and carry him off for a long talk
Winsett was not a journalist by choice He was a pure man of letters untimely born in a world that had no need of letters but after publishing one volume of brief and exquisite literary appreciations of which one hundred and twenty copies were sold thirty given away and the balance eventually destroyed by the publishers as per contract to make room for more marketable material he had abandoned his real calling and taken a subeditorial job on a womens weekly where fashionplates and paper patterns alternated with New England lovestories and advertisements of temperance drinks
On the subject of Hearthfires as the paper was called he was inexhaustibly entertaining but beneath his fun lurked the sterile bitterness of the still young man who has tried and given up His conversation always made Archer take the measure of his own life and feel how little it contained but Winsetts after all contained still less and though their common fund of intellectual interests and curiosities made their talks exhilarating their exchange of views usually remained within the limits of a pensive dilettantism
The fact is life isnt much a fit for either of us Winsett had once said Im down and out nothing to be done about it Ive got only one ware to produce and theres no market for it here and wont be in my time But youre free and youre welloff Why dont you get into touch Theres only one way to do it to go into politics
Archer threw his head back and laughed There one saw at a flash the unbridgeable difference between men like Winsett and the others—Archers kind Every one in polite circles knew that in America a gentleman couldnt go into politics But since he could hardly put it in that way to Winsett he answered evasively Look at the career of the honest man in American politics They dont want us
Whos they Why dont you all get together and be they yourselves
Archers laugh lingered on his lips in a slightly condescending smile It was useless to prolong the discussion everybody knew the melancholy fate of the few gentlemen who had risked their clean linen in municipal or state politics in New York The day was past when that sort of thing was possible the country was in possession of the bosses and the emigrant and decent people had to fall back on sport or culture
Culture Yes—if we had it But there are just a few little local patches dying out here and there for lack of—well hoeing and crossfertilising the last remnants of the old European tradition that your forebears brought with them But youre in a pitiful little minority youve got no centre no competition no audience Youre like the pictures on the walls of a deserted house The Portrait of a Gentleman Youll never amount to anything any of you till you roll up your sleeves and get right down into the muck That or emigrate God If I could emigrate
Archer mentally shrugged his shoulders and turned the conversation back to books where Winsett if uncertain was always interesting Emigrate As if a gentleman could abandon his own country One could no more do that than one could roll up ones sleeves and go down into the muck A gentleman simply stayed at home and abstained But you couldnt make a man like Winsett see that and that was why the New York of literary clubs and exotic restaurants though a first shake made it seem more of a kaleidoscope turned out in the end to be a smaller box with a more monotonous pattern than the assembled atoms of Fifth Avenue
The next morning Archer scoured the town in vain for more yellow roses In consequence of this search he arrived late at the office perceived that his doing so made no difference whatever to any one and was filled with sudden exasperation at the elaborate futility of his life Why should he not be at that moment on the sands of St Augustine with May Welland No one was deceived by his pretense of professional activity In oldfashioned legal firms like that of which Mr Letterblair was the head and which were mainly engaged in the management of large estates and conservative investments there were always two or three young men fairly welloff and without professional ambition who for a certain number of hours of each day sat at their desks accomplishing trivial tasks or simply reading the newspapers Though it was supposed to be proper for them to have an occupation the crude fact of moneymaking was still regarded as derogatory and the law being a profession was accounted a more gentlemanly pursuit than business But none of these young men had much hope of really advancing in his profession or any earnest desire to do so and over many of them the green mould of the perfunctory was already perceptibly spreading
It made Archer shiver to think that it might be spreading over him too He had to be sure other tastes and interests he spent his vacations in European travel cultivated the clever people May spoke of and generally tried to keep up as he had somewhat wistfully put it to Madame Olenska But once he was married what would become of this narrow margin of life in which his real experiences were lived He had seen enough of other young men who had dreamed his dream though perhaps less ardently and who had gradually sunk into the placid and luxurious routine of their elders
From the office he sent a note by messenger to Madame Olenska asking if he might call that afternoon and begging her to let him find a reply at his club but at the club he found nothing nor did he receive any letter the following day This unexpected silence mortified him beyond reason and though the next morning he saw a glorious cluster of yellow roses behind a florists windowpane he left it there It was only on the third morning that he received a line by post from the Countess Olenska To his surprise it was dated from Skuytercliff whither the van der Luydens had promptly retreated after putting the Duke on board his steamer
I ran away the writer began abruptly without the usual preliminaries the day after I saw you at the play and these kind friends have taken me in I wanted to be quiet and think things over You were right in telling me how kind they were I feel myself so safe here I wish that you were with us She ended with a conventional Yours sincerely and without any allusion to the date of her return
The tone of the note surprised the young man What was Madame Olenska running away from and why did she feel the need to be safe His first thought was of some dark menace from abroad then he reflected that he did not know her epistolary style and that it might run to picturesque exaggeration Women always exaggerated and moreover she was not wholly at her ease in English which she often spoke as if she were translating from the French Je me suis evadee— put in that way the opening sentence immediately suggested that she might merely have wanted to escape from a boring round of engagements which was very likely true for he judged her to be capricious and easily wearied of the pleasure of the moment
It amused him to think of the van der Luydens having carried her off to Skuytercliff on a second visit and this time for an indefinite period The doors of Skuytercliff were rarely and grudgingly opened to visitors and a chilly weekend was the most ever offered to the few thus privileged But Archer had seen on his last visit to Paris the delicious play of Labiche Le Voyage de M Perrichon and he remembered M Perrichons dogged and undiscouraged attachment to the young man whom he had pulled out of the glacier The van der Luydens had rescued Madame Olenska from a doom almost as icy and though there were many other reasons for being attracted to her Archer knew that beneath them all lay the gentle and obstinate determination to go on rescuing her
He felt a distinct disappointment on learning that she was away and almost immediately remembered that only the day before he had refused an invitation to spend the following Sunday with the Reggie Chiverses at their house on the Hudson a few miles below Skuytercliff
He had had his fill long ago of the noisy friendly parties at Highbank with coasting iceboating sleighing long tramps in the snow and a general flavour of mild flirting and milder practical jokes He had just received a box of new books from his London bookseller and had preferred the prospect of a quiet Sunday at home with his spoils But he now went into the club writingroom wrote a hurried telegram and told the servant to send it immediately He knew that Mrs Reggie didnt object to her visitors suddenly changing their minds and that there was always a room to spare in her elastic house
XV
Newland Archer arrived at the Chiverses on Friday evening and on Saturday went conscientiously through all the rites appertaining to a weekend at Highbank
In the morning he had a spin in the iceboat with his hostess and a few of the hardier guests in the afternoon he went over the farm with Reggie and listened in the elaborately appointed stables to long and impressive disquisitions on the horse after tea he talked in a corner of the firelit hall with a young lady who had professed herself brokenhearted when his engagement was announced but was now eager to tell him of her own matrimonial hopes and finally about midnight he assisted in putting a goldfish in one visitors bed dressed up a burglar in the bathroom of a nervous aunt and saw in the small hours by joining in a pillowfight that ranged from the nurseries to the basement But on Sunday after luncheon he borrowed a cutter and drove over to Skuytercliff
People had always been told that the house at Skuytercliff was an Italian villa Those who had never been to Italy believed it so did some who had The house had been built by Mr van der Luyden in his youth on his return from the grand tour and in anticipation of his approaching marriage with Miss Louisa Dagonet It was a large square wooden structure with tongued and grooved walls painted pale green and white a Corinthian portico and fluted pilasters between the windows From the high ground on which it stood a series of terraces bordered by balustrades and urns descended in the steelengraving style to a small irregular lake with an asphalt edge overhung by rare weeping conifers To the right and left the famous weedless lawns studded with specimen trees each of a different variety rolled away to long ranges of grass crested with elaborate castiron ornaments and below in a hollow lay the fourroomed stone house which the first Patroon had built on the land granted him in 1612
Against the uniform sheet of snow and the greyish winter sky the Italian villa loomed up rather grimly even in summer it kept its distance and the boldest coleus bed had never ventured nearer than thirty feet from its awful front Now as Archer rang the bell the long tinkle seemed to echo through a mausoleum and the surprise of the butler who at length responded to the call was as great as though he had been summoned from his final sleep
Happily Archer was of the family and therefore irregular though his arrival was entitled to be informed that the Countess Olenska was out having driven to afternoon service with Mrs van der Luyden exactly three quarters of an hour earlier
Mr van der Luyden the butler continued is in sir but my impression is that he is either finishing his nap or else reading yesterdays Evening Post I heard him say sir on his return from church this morning that he intended to look through the Evening Post after luncheon if you like sir I might go to the library door and listen—
But Archer thanking him said that he would go and meet the ladies and the butler obviously relieved closed the door on him majestically
A groom took the cutter to the stables and Archer struck through the park to the highroad The village of Skuytercliff was only a mile and a half away but he knew that Mrs van der Luyden never walked and that he must keep to the road to meet the carriage Presently however coming down a footpath that crossed the highway he caught sight of a slight figure in a red cloak with a big dog running ahead He hurried forward and Madame Olenska stopped short with a smile of welcome
Ah youve come she said and drew her hand from her muff
The red cloak made her look gay and vivid like the Ellen Mingott of old days and he laughed as he took her hand and answered I came to see what you were running away from
Her face clouded over but she answered Ah well—you will see presently
The answer puzzled him Why—do you mean that youve been overtaken
She shrugged her shoulders with a little movement like Nastasias and rejoined in a lighter tone Shall we walk on Im so cold after the sermon And what does it matter now youre here to protect me
The blood rose to his temples and he caught a fold of her cloak Ellen—what is it You must tell me
Oh presently—lets run a race first my feet are freezing to the ground she cried and gathering up the cloak she fled away across the snow the dog leaping about her with challenging barks For a moment Archer stood watching his gaze delighted by the flash of the red meteor against the snow then he started after her and they met panting and laughing at a wicket that led into the park
She looked up at him and smiled I knew youd come
That shows you wanted me to he returned with a disproportionate joy in their nonsense The white glitter of the trees filled the air with its own mysterious brightness and as they walked on over the snow the ground seemed to sing under their feet
Where did you come from Madame Olenska asked
He told her and added It was because I got your note
After a pause she said with a just perceptible chill in her voice May asked you to take care of me
I didnt need any asking
You mean—Im so evidently helpless and defenceless What a poor thing you must all think me But women here seem not—seem never to feel the need any more than the blessed in heaven
He lowered his voice to ask What sort of a need
Ah dont ask me I dont speak your language she retorted petulantly
The answer smote him like a blow and he stood still in the path looking down at her
What did I come for if I dont speak yours
Oh my friend— She laid her hand lightly on his arm and he pleaded earnestly Ellen—why wont you tell me whats happened
She shrugged again Does anything ever happen in heaven
He was silent and they walked on a few yards without exchanging a word Finally she said I will tell you—but where where where One cant be alone for a minute in that great seminary of a house with all the doors wide open and always a servant bringing tea or a log for the fire or the newspaper Is there nowhere in an American house where one may be by ones self Youre so shy and yet youre so public I always feel as if I were in the convent again—or on the stage before a dreadfully polite audience that never applauds
Ah you dont like us Archer exclaimed
They were walking past the house of the old Patroon with its squat walls and small square windows compactly grouped about a central chimney The shutters stood wide and through one of the newlywashed windows Archer caught the light of a fire
Why—the house is open he said
She stood still No only for today at least I wanted to see it and Mr van der Luyden had the fire lit and the windows opened so that we might stop there on the way back from church this morning She ran up the steps and tried the door Its still unlocked—what luck Come in and we can have a quiet talk Mrs van der Luyden has driven over to see her old aunts at Rhinebeck and we shant be missed at the house for another hour
He followed her into the narrow passage His spirits which had dropped at her last words rose with an irrational leap The homely little house stood there its panels and brasses shining in the firelight as if magically created to receive them A big bed of embers still gleamed in the kitchen chimney under an iron pot hung from an ancient crane Rushbottomed armchairs faced each other across the tiled hearth and rows of Delft plates stood on shelves against the walls Archer stooped over and threw a log upon the embers
Madame Olenska dropping her cloak sat down in one of the chairs Archer leaned against the chimney and looked at her
Youre laughing now but when you wrote me you were unhappy he said
Yes She paused But I cant feel unhappy when youre here
I shant be here long he rejoined his lips stiffening with the effort to say just so much and no more
No I know But Im improvident I live in the moment when Im happy
The words stole through him like a temptation and to close his senses to it he moved away from the hearth and stood gazing out at the black treeboles against the snow But it was as if she too had shifted her place and he still saw her between himself and the trees drooping over the fire with her indolent smile Archers heart was beating insubordinately What if it were from him that she had been running away and if she had waited to tell him so till they were here alone together in this secret room
Ellen if Im really a help to you—if you really wanted me to come—tell me whats wrong tell me what it is youre running away from he insisted
He spoke without shifting his position without even turning to look at her if the thing was to happen it was to happen in this way with the whole width of the room between them and his eyes still fixed on the outer snow
For a long moment she was silent and in that moment Archer imagined her almost heard her stealing up behind him to throw her light arms about his neck While he waited soul and body throbbing with the miracle to come his eyes mechanically received the image of a heavilycoated man with his fur collar turned up who was advancing along the path to the house The man was Julius Beaufort
Ah— Archer cried bursting into a laugh
Madame Olenska had sprung up and moved to his side slipping her hand into his but after a glance through the window her face paled and she shrank back
So that was it Archer said derisively
I didnt know he was here Madame Olenska murmured Her hand still clung to Archers but he drew away from her and walking out into the passage threw open the door of the house
Hallo Beaufort—this way Madame Olenska was expecting you he said
During his journey back to New York the next morning Archer relived with a fatiguing vividness his last moments at Skuytercliff
Beaufort though clearly annoyed at finding him with Madame Olenska had as usual carried off the situation highhandedly His way of ignoring people whose presence inconvenienced him actually gave them if they were sensitive to it a feeling of invisibility of nonexistence Archer as the three strolled back through the park was aware of this odd sense of disembodiment and humbling as it was to his vanity it gave him the ghostly advantage of observing unobserved
Beaufort had entered the little house with his usual easy assurance but he could not smile away the vertical line between his eyes It was fairly clear that Madame Olenska had not known that he was coming though her words to Archer had hinted at the possibility at any rate she had evidently not told him where she was going when she left New York and her unexplained departure had exasperated him The ostensible reason of his appearance was the discovery the very night before of a perfect little house not in the market which was really just the thing for her but would be snapped up instantly if she didnt take it and he was loud in mockreproaches for the dance she had led him in running away just as he had found it
If only this new dodge for talking along a wire had been a little bit nearer perfection I might have told you all this from town and been toasting my toes before the club fire at this minute instead of tramping after you through the snow he grumbled disguising a real irritation under the pretence of it and at this opening Madame Olenska twisted the talk away to the fantastic possibility that they might one day actually converse with each other from street to street or even—incredible dream—from one town to another This struck from all three allusions to Edgar Poe and Jules Verne and such platitudes as naturally rise to the lips of the most intelligent when they are talking against time and dealing with a new invention in which it would seem ingenuous to believe too soon and the question of the telephone carried them safely back to the big house
Mrs van der Luyden had not yet returned and Archer took his leave and walked off to fetch the cutter while Beaufort followed the Countess Olenska indoors It was probable that little as the van der Luydens encouraged unannounced visits he could count on being asked to dine and sent back to the station to catch the nine oclock train but more than that he would certainly not get for it would be inconceivable to his hosts that a gentleman travelling without luggage should wish to spend the night and distasteful to them to propose it to a person with whom they were on terms of such limited cordiality as Beaufort
Beaufort knew all this and must have foreseen it and his taking the long journey for so small a reward gave the measure of his impatience He was undeniably in pursuit of the Countess Olenska and Beaufort had only one object in view in his pursuit of pretty women His dull and childless home had long since palled on him and in addition to more permanent consolations he was always in quest of amorous adventures in his own set This was the man from whom Madame Olenska was avowedly flying the question was whether she had fled because his importunities displeased her or because she did not wholly trust herself to resist them unless indeed all her talk of flight had been a blind and her departure no more than a manoeuvre
Archer did not really believe this Little as he had actually seen of Madame Olenska he was beginning to think that he could read her face and if not her face her voice and both had betrayed annoyance and even dismay at Beauforts sudden appearance But after all if this were the case was it not worse than if she had left New York for the express purpose of meeting him If she had done that she ceased to be an object of interest she threw in her lot with the vulgarest of dissemblers a woman engaged in a love affair with Beaufort classed herself irretrievably
No it was worse a thousand times if judging Beaufort and probably despising him she was yet drawn to him by all that gave him an advantage over the other men about her his habit of two continents and two societies his familiar association with artists and actors and people generally in the worlds eye and his careless contempt for local prejudices Beaufort was vulgar he was uneducated he was purseproud but the circumstances of his life and a certain native shrewdness made him better worth talking to than many men morally and socially his betters whose horizon was bounded by the Battery and the Central Park How should any one coming from a wider world not feel the difference and be attracted by it
Madame Olenska in a burst of irritation had said to Archer that he and she did not talk the same language and the young man knew that in some respects this was true But Beaufort understood every turn of her dialect and spoke it fluently his view of life his tone his attitude were merely a coarser reflection of those revealed in Count Olenskis letter This might seem to be to his disadvantage with Count Olenskis wife but Archer was too intelligent to think that a young woman like Ellen Olenska would necessarily recoil from everything that reminded her of her past She might believe herself wholly in revolt against it but what had charmed her in it would still charm her even though it were against her will
Thus with a painful impartiality did the young man make out the case for Beaufort and for Beauforts victim A longing to enlighten her was strong in him and there were moments when he imagined that all she asked was to be enlightened
That evening he unpacked his books from London The box was full of things he had been waiting for impatiently a new volume of Herbert Spencer another collection of the prolific Alphonse Daudets brilliant tales and a novel called Middlemarch as to which there had lately been interesting things said in the reviews He had declined three dinner invitations in favour of this feast but though he turned the pages with the sensuous joy of the booklover he did not know what he was reading and one book after another dropped from his hand Suddenly among them he lit on a small volume of verse which he had ordered because the name had attracted him The House of Life He took it up and found himself plunged in an atmosphere unlike any he had ever breathed in books so warm so rich and yet so ineffably tender that it gave a new and haunting beauty to the most elementary of human passions All through the night he pursued through those enchanted pages the vision of a woman who had the face of Ellen Olenska but when he woke the next morning and looked out at the brownstone houses across the street and thought of his desk in Mr Letterblairs office and the family pew in Grace Church his hour in the park of Skuytercliff became as far outside the pale of probability as the visions of the night
Mercy how pale you look Newland Janey commented over the coffeecups at breakfast and his mother added Newland dear Ive noticed lately that youve been coughing I do hope youre not letting yourself be overworked For it was the conviction of both ladies that under the iron despotism of his senior partners the young mans life was spent in the most exhausting professional labours—and he had never thought it necessary to undeceive them
The next two or three days dragged by heavily The taste of the usual was like cinders in his mouth and there were moments when he felt as if he were being buried alive under his future He heard nothing of the Countess Olenska or of the perfect little house and though he met Beaufort at the club they merely nodded at each other across the whisttables It was not till the fourth evening that he found a note awaiting him on his return home Come late tomorrow I must explain to you Ellen These were the only words it contained
The young man who was dining out thrust the note into his pocket smiling a little at the Frenchness of the to you After dinner he went to a play and it was not until his return home after midnight that he drew Madame Olenskas missive out again and reread it slowly a number of times There were several ways of answering it and he gave considerable thought to each one during the watches of an agitated night That on which when morning came he finally decided was to pitch some clothes into a portmanteau and jump on board a boat that was leaving that very afternoon for St Augustine
XVI
When Archer walked down the sandy main street of St Augustine to the house which had been pointed out to him as Mr Wellands and saw May Welland standing under a magnolia with the sun in her hair he wondered why he had waited so long to come
Here was the truth here was reality here was the life that belonged to him and he who fancied himself so scornful of arbitrary restraints had been afraid to break away from his desk because of what people might think of his stealing a holiday
Her first exclamation was Newland—has anything happened and it occurred to him that it would have been more feminine if she had instantly read in his eyes why he had come But when he answered Yes—I found I had to see you her happy blushes took the chill from her surprise and he saw how easily he would be forgiven and how soon even Mr Letterblairs mild disapproval would be smiled away by a tolerant family
Early as it was the main street was no place for any but formal greetings and Archer longed to be alone with May and to pour out all his tenderness and his impatience It still lacked an hour to the late Welland breakfasttime and instead of asking him to come in she proposed that they should walk out to an old orangegarden beyond the town She had just been for a row on the river and the sun that netted the little waves with gold seemed to have caught her in its meshes Across the warm brown of her cheek her blown hair glittered like silver wire and her eyes too looked lighter almost pale in their youthful limpidity As she walked beside Archer with her long swinging gait her face wore the vacant serenity of a young marble athlete
To Archers strained nerves the vision was as soothing as the sight of the blue sky and the lazy river They sat down on a bench under the orangetrees and he put his arm about her and kissed her It was like drinking at a cold spring with the sun on it but his pressure may have been more vehement than he had intended for the blood rose to her face and she drew back as if he had startled her
What is it he asked smiling and she looked at him with surprise and answered Nothing
A slight embarrassment fell on them and her hand slipped out of his It was the only time that he had kissed her on the lips except for their fugitive embrace in the Beaufort conservatory and he saw that she was disturbed and shaken out of her cool boyish composure
Tell me what you do all day he said crossing his arms under his tiltedback head and pushing his hat forward to screen the sundazzle To let her talk about familiar and simple things was the easiest way of carrying on his own independent train of thought and he sat listening to her simple chronicle of swimming sailing and riding varied by an occasional dance at the primitive inn when a manofwar came in A few pleasant people from Philadelphia and Baltimore were picknicking at the inn and the Selfridge Merrys had come down for three weeks because Kate Merry had had bronchitis They were planning to lay out a lawn tennis court on the sands but no one but Kate and May had racquets and most of the people had not even heard of the game
All this kept her very busy and she had not had time to do more than look at the little vellum book that Archer had sent her the week before the Sonnets from the Portuguese but she was learning by heart How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix because it was one of the first things he had ever read to her and it amused her to be able to tell him that Kate Merry had never even heard of a poet called Robert Browning
Presently she started up exclaiming that they would be late for breakfast and they hurried back to the tumbledown house with its pointless porch and unpruned hedge of plumbago and pink geraniums where the Wellands were installed for the winter Mr Wellands sensitive domesticity shrank from the discomforts of the slovenly southern hotel and at immense expense and in face of almost insuperable difficulties Mrs Welland was obliged year after year to improvise an establishment partly made up of discontented New York servants and partly drawn from the local African supply
The doctors want my husband to feel that he is in his own home otherwise he would be so wretched that the climate would not do him any good she explained winter after winter to the sympathising Philadelphians and Baltimoreans and Mr Welland beaming across a breakfast table miraculously supplied with the most varied delicacies was presently saying to Archer You see my dear fellow we camp—we literally camp I tell my wife and May that I want to teach them how to rough it
Mr and Mrs Welland had been as much surprised as their daughter by the young mans sudden arrival but it had occurred to him to explain that he had felt himself on the verge of a nasty cold and this seemed to Mr Welland an allsufficient reason for abandoning any duty
You cant be too careful especially toward spring he said heaping his plate with strawcoloured griddlecakes and drowning them in golden syrup If Id only been as prudent at your age May would have been dancing at the Assemblies now instead of spending her winters in a wilderness with an old invalid
Oh but I love it here Papa you know I do If only Newland could stay I should like it a thousand times better than New York
Newland must stay till he has quite thrown off his cold said Mrs Welland indulgently and the young man laughed and said he supposed there was such a thing as ones profession
He managed however after an exchange of telegrams with the firm to make his cold last a week and it shed an ironic light on the situation to know that Mr Letterblairs indulgence was partly due to the satisfactory way in which his brilliant young junior partner had settled the troublesome matter of the Olenski divorce Mr Letterblair had let Mrs Welland know that Mr Archer had rendered an invaluable service to the whole family and that old Mrs Manson Mingott had been particularly pleased and one day when May had gone for a drive with her father in the only vehicle the place produced Mrs Welland took occasion to touch on a topic which she always avoided in her daughters presence
Im afraid Ellens ideas are not at all like ours She was barely eighteen when Medora Manson took her back to Europe—you remember the excitement when she appeared in black at her comingout ball Another of Medoras fads—really this time it was almost prophetic That must have been at least twelve years ago and since then Ellen has never been to America No wonder she is completely Europeanised
But European society is not given to divorce Countess Olenska thought she would be conforming to American ideas in asking for her freedom It was the first time that the young man had pronounced her name since he had left Skuytercliff and he felt the colour rise to his cheek
Mrs Welland smiled compassionately That is just like the extraordinary things that foreigners invent about us They think we dine at two oclock and countenance divorce That is why it seems to me so foolish to entertain them when they come to New York They accept our hospitality and then they go home and repeat the same stupid stories
Archer made no comment on this and Mrs Welland continued But we do most thoroughly appreciate your persuading Ellen to give up the idea Her grandmother and her uncle Lovell could do nothing with her both of them have written that her changing her mind was entirely due to your influence—in fact she said so to her grandmother She has an unbounded admiration for you Poor Ellen—she was always a wayward child I wonder what her fate will be
What weve all contrived to make it he felt like answering If youd all of you rather she should be Beauforts mistress than some decent fellows wife youve certainly gone the right way about it
He wondered what Mrs Welland would have said if he had uttered the words instead of merely thinking them He could picture the sudden decomposure of her firm placid features to which a lifelong mastery over trifles had given an air of factitious authority Traces still lingered on them of a fresh beauty like her daughters and he asked himself if Mays face was doomed to thicken into the same middleaged image of invincible innocence
Ah no he did not want May to have that kind of innocence the innocence that seals the mind against imagination and the heart against experience
I verily believe Mrs Welland continued that if the horrible business had come out in the newspapers it would have been my husbands deathblow I dont know any of the details I only ask not to as I told poor Ellen when she tried to talk to me about it Having an invalid to care for I have to keep my mind bright and happy But Mr Welland was terribly upset he had a slight temperature every morning while we were waiting to hear what had been decided It was the horror of his girls learning that such things were possible—but of course dear Newland you felt that too We all knew that you were thinking of May
Im always thinking of May the young man rejoined rising to cut short the conversation
He had meant to seize the opportunity of his private talk with Mrs Welland to urge her to advance the date of his marriage But he could think of no arguments that would move her and with a sense of relief he saw Mr Welland and May driving up to the door
His only hope was to plead again with May and on the day before his departure he walked with her to the ruinous garden of the Spanish Mission The background lent itself to allusions to European scenes and May who was looking her loveliest under a widebrimmed hat that cast a shadow of mystery over her tooclear eyes kindled into eagerness as he spoke of Granada and the Alhambra
We might be seeing it all this spring—even the Easter ceremonies at Seville he urged exaggerating his demands in the hope of a larger concession
Easter in Seville And it will be Lent next week she laughed
Why shouldnt we be married in Lent he rejoined but she looked so shocked that he saw his mistake
Of course I didnt mean that dearest but soon after Easter—so that we could sail at the end of April I know I could arrange it at the office
She smiled dreamily upon the possibility but he perceived that to dream of it sufficed her It was like hearing him read aloud out of his poetry books the beautiful things that could not possibly happen in real life
Oh do go on Newland I do love your descriptions
But why should they be only descriptions Why shouldnt we make them real
We shall dearest of course next year Her voice lingered over it
Dont you want them to be real sooner Cant I persuade you to break away now
She bowed her head vanishing from him under her conniving hatbrim
Why should we dream away another year Look at me dear Dont you understand how I want you for my wife
For a moment she remained motionless then she raised on him eyes of such despairing dearness that he halfreleased her waist from his hold But suddenly her look changed and deepened inscrutably Im not sure if I DO understand she said Is it—is it because youre not certain of continuing to care for me
Archer sprang up from his seat My God—perhaps—I dont know he broke out angrily
May Welland rose also as they faced each other she seemed to grow in womanly stature and dignity Both were silent for a moment as if dismayed by the unforeseen trend of their words then she said in a low voice If that is it—is there some one else
Some one else—between you and me He echoed her words slowly as though they were only halfintelligible and he wanted time to repeat the question to himself She seemed to catch the uncertainty of his voice for she went on in a deepening tone Let us talk frankly Newland Sometimes Ive felt a difference in you especially since our engagement has been announced
Dear—what madness he recovered himself to exclaim
She met his protest with a faint smile If it is it wont hurt us to talk about it She paused and added lifting her head with one of her noble movements Or even if its true why shouldnt we speak of it You might so easily have made a mistake
He lowered his head staring at the black leafpattern on the sunny path at their feet Mistakes are always easy to make but if I had made one of the kind you suggest is it likely that I should be imploring you to hasten our marriage
She looked downward too disturbing the pattern with the point of her sunshade while she struggled for expression Yes she said at length You might want—once for all—to settle the question its one way
Her quiet lucidity startled him but did not mislead him into thinking her insensible Under her hatbrim he saw the pallor of her profile and a slight tremor of the nostril above her resolutely steadied lips
Well— he questioned sitting down on the bench and looking up at her with a frown that he tried to make playful
She dropped back into her seat and went on You mustnt think that a girl knows as little as her parents imagine One hears and one notices—one has ones feelings and ideas And of course long before you told me that you cared for me Id known that there was some one else you were interested in every one was talking about it two years ago at Newport And once I saw you sitting together on the verandah at a dance—and when she came back into the house her face was sad and I felt sorry for her I remembered it afterward when we were engaged
Her voice had sunk almost to a whisper and she sat clasping and unclasping her hands about the handle of her sunshade The young man laid his upon them with a gentle pressure his heart dilated with an inexpressible relief
My dear child—was THAT it If you only knew the truth
She raised her head quickly Then there is a truth I dont know
He kept his hand over hers I meant the truth about the old story you speak of
But thats what I want to know Newland—what I ought to know I couldnt have my happiness made out of a wrong—an unfairness—to somebody else And I want to believe that it would be the same with you What sort of a life could we build on such foundations
Her face had taken on a look of such tragic courage that he felt like bowing himself down at her feet Ive wanted to say this for a long time she went on Ive wanted to tell you that when two people really love each other I understand that there may be situations which make it right that they should—should go against public opinion And if you feel yourself in any way pledged pledged to the person weve spoken of and if there is any way any way in which you can fulfill your pledge even by her getting a divorce Newland dont give her up because of me
His surprise at discovering that her fears had fastened upon an episode so remote and so completely of the past as his loveaffair with Mrs Thorley Rushworth gave way to wonder at the generosity of her view There was something superhuman in an attitude so recklessly unorthodox and if other problems had not pressed on him he would have been lost in wonder at the prodigy of the Wellands daughter urging him to marry his former mistress But he was still dizzy with the glimpse of the precipice they had skirted and full of a new awe at the mystery of younggirlhood
For a moment he could not speak then he said There is no pledge—no obligation whatever—of the kind you think Such cases dont always—present themselves quite as simply as But thats no matter I love your generosity because I feel as you do about those things I feel that each case must be judged individually on its own merits irrespective of stupid conventionalities I mean each womans right to her liberty— He pulled himself up startled by the turn his thoughts had taken and went on looking at her with a smile Since you understand so many things dearest cant you go a little farther and understand the uselessness of our submitting to another form of the same foolish conventionalities If theres no one and nothing between us isnt that an argument for marrying quickly rather than for more delay
She flushed with joy and lifted her face to his as he bent to it he saw that her eyes were full of happy tears But in another moment she seemed to have descended from her womanly eminence to helpless and timorous girlhood and he understood that her courage and initiative were all for others and that she had none for herself It was evident that the effort of speaking had been much greater than her studied composure betrayed and that at his first word of reassurance she had dropped back into the usual as a tooadventurous child takes refuge in its mothers arms
Archer had no heart to go on pleading with her he was too much disappointed at the vanishing of the new being who had cast that one deep look at him from her transparent eyes May seemed to be aware of his disappointment but without knowing how to alleviate it and they stood up and walked silently home
XVII
Your cousin the Countess called on mother while you were away Janey Archer announced to her brother on the evening of his return
The young man who was dining alone with his mother and sister glanced up in surprise and saw Mrs Archers gaze demurely bent on her plate Mrs Archer did not regard her seclusion from the world as a reason for being forgotten by it and Newland guessed that she was slightly annoyed that he should be surprised by Madame Olenskas visit
She had on a black velvet polonaise with jet buttons and a tiny green monkey muff I never saw her so stylishly dressed Janey continued She came alone early on Sunday afternoon luckily the fire was lit in the drawingroom She had one of those new cardcases She said she wanted to know us because youd been so good to her
Newland laughed Madame Olenska always takes that tone about her friends Shes very happy at being among her own people again
Yes so she told us said Mrs Archer I must say she seems thankful to be here
I hope you liked her mother
Mrs Archer drew her lips together She certainly lays herself out to please even when she is calling on an old lady
Mother doesnt think her simple Janey interjected her eyes screwed upon her brothers face
Its just my oldfashioned feeling dear May is my ideal said Mrs Archer
Ah said her son theyre not alike
Archer had left St Augustine charged with many messages for old Mrs Mingott and a day or two after his return to town he called on her
The old lady received him with unusual warmth she was grateful to him for persuading the Countess Olenska to give up the idea of a divorce and when he told her that he had deserted the office without leave and rushed down to St Augustine simply because he wanted to see May she gave an adipose chuckle and patted his knee with her puffball hand
Ah ah—so you kicked over the traces did you And I suppose Augusta and Welland pulled long faces and behaved as if the end of the world had come But little May—she knew better Ill be bound
I hoped she did but after all she wouldnt agree to what Id gone down to ask for
Wouldnt she indeed And what was that
I wanted to get her to promise that we should be married in April Whats the use of our wasting another year
Mrs Manson Mingott screwed up her little mouth into a grimace of mimic prudery and twinkled at him through malicious lids Ask Mamma I suppose—the usual story Ah these Mingotts—all alike Born in a rut and you cant root em out of it When I built this house youd have thought I was moving to California Nobody ever HAD built above Fortieth Street—no says I nor above the Battery either before Christopher Columbus discovered America No no not one of them wants to be different theyre as scared of it as the smallpox Ah my dear Mr Archer I thank my stars Im nothing but a vulgar Spicer but theres not one of my own children that takes after me but my little Ellen She broke off still twinkling at him and asked with the casual irrelevance of old age Now why in the world didnt you marry my little Ellen
Archer laughed For one thing she wasnt there to be married
No—to be sure mores the pity And now its too late her life is finished She spoke with the coldblooded complacency of the aged throwing earth into the grave of young hopes The young mans heart grew chill and he said hurriedly Cant I persuade you to use your influence with the Wellands Mrs Mingott I wasnt made for long engagements
Old Catherine beamed on him approvingly No I can see that Youve got a quick eye When you were a little boy Ive no doubt you liked to be helped first She threw back her head with a laugh that made her chins ripple like little waves Ah heres my Ellen now she exclaimed as the portieres parted behind her
Madame Olenska came forward with a smile Her face looked vivid and happy and she held out her hand gaily to Archer while she stooped to her grandmothers kiss
I was just saying to him my dear Now why didnt you marry my little Ellen
Madame Olenska looked at Archer still smiling And what did he answer
Oh my darling I leave you to find that out Hes been down to Florida to see his sweetheart
Yes I know She still looked at him I went to see your mother to ask where youd gone I sent a note that you never answered and I was afraid you were ill
He muttered something about leaving unexpectedly in a great hurry and having intended to write to her from St Augustine
And of course once you were there you never thought of me again She continued to beam on him with a gaiety that might have been a studied assumption of indifference
If she still needs me shes determined not to let me see it he thought stung by her manner He wanted to thank her for having been to see his mother but under the ancestresss malicious eye he felt himself tonguetied and constrained
Look at him—in such hot haste to get married that he took French leave and rushed down to implore the silly girl on his knees Thats something like a lover—thats the way handsome Bob Spicer carried off my poor mother and then got tired of her before I was weaned—though they only had to wait eight months for me But there—youre not a Spicer young man luckily for you and for May Its only my poor Ellen that has kept any of their wicked blood the rest of them are all model Mingotts cried the old lady scornfully
Archer was aware that Madame Olenska who had seated herself at her grandmothers side was still thoughtfully scrutinising him The gaiety had faded from her eyes and she said with great gentleness Surely Granny we can persuade them between us to do as he wishes
Archer rose to go and as his hand met Madame Olenskas he felt that she was waiting for him to make some allusion to her unanswered letter
When can I see you he asked as she walked with him to the door of the room
Whenever you like but it must be soon if you want to see the little house again I am moving next week
A pang shot through him at the memory of his lamplit hours in the lowstudded drawingroom Few as they had been they were thick with memories
Tomorrow evening
She nodded Tomorrow yes but early Im going out
The next day was a Sunday and if she were going out on a Sunday evening it could of course be only to Mrs Lemuel Strutherss He felt a slight movement of annoyance not so much at her going there for he rather liked her going where she pleased in spite of the van der Luydens but because it was the kind of house at which she was sure to meet Beaufort where she must have known beforehand that she would meet him—and where she was probably going for that purpose
Very well tomorrow evening he repeated inwardly resolved that he would not go early and that by reaching her door late he would either prevent her from going to Mrs Strutherss or else arrive after she had started—which all things considered would no doubt be the simplest solution
It was only halfpast eight after all when he rang the bell under the wisteria not as late as he had intended by half an hour—but a singular restlessness had driven him to her door He reflected however that Mrs Strutherss Sunday evenings were not like a ball and that her guests as if to minimise their delinquency usually went early
The one thing he had not counted on in entering Madame Olenskas hall was to find hats and overcoats there Why had she bidden him to come early if she was having people to dine On a closer inspection of the garments besides which Nastasia was laying his own his resentment gave way to curiosity The overcoats were in fact the very strangest he had ever seen under a polite roof and it took but a glance to assure himself that neither of them belonged to Julius Beaufort One was a shaggy yellow ulster of reachmedown cut the other a very old and rusty cloak with a cape—something like what the French called a Macfarlane This garment which appeared to be made for a person of prodigious size had evidently seen long and hard wear and its greenishblack folds gave out a moist sawdusty smell suggestive of prolonged sessions against barroom walls On it lay a ragged grey scarf and an odd felt hat of semiclerical shape
Archer raised his eyebrows enquiringly at Nastasia who raised hers in return with a fatalistic Gia as she threw open the drawingroom door
The young man saw at once that his hostess was not in the room then with surprise he discovered another lady standing by the fire This lady who was long lean and loosely put together was clad in raiment intricately looped and fringed with plaids and stripes and bands of plain colour disposed in a design to which the clue seemed missing Her hair which had tried to turn white and only succeeded in fading was surmounted by a Spanish comb and black lace scarf and silk mittens visibly darned covered her rheumatic hands
Beside her in a cloud of cigarsmoke stood the owners of the two overcoats both in morning clothes that they had evidently not taken off since morning In one of the two Archer to his surprise recognised Ned Winsett the other and older who was unknown to him and whose gigantic frame declared him to be the wearer of the Macfarlane had a feebly leonine head with crumpled grey hair and moved his arms with large pawing gestures as though he were distributing lay blessings to a kneeling multitude
These three persons stood together on the hearthrug their eyes fixed on an extraordinarily large bouquet of crimson roses with a knot of purple pansies at their base that lay on the sofa where Madame Olenska usually sat
What they must have cost at this season—though of course its the sentiment one cares about the lady was saying in a sighing staccato as Archer came in
The three turned with surprise at his appearance and the lady advancing held out her hand
Dear Mr Archer—almost my cousin Newland she said I am the Marchioness Manson
Archer bowed and she continued My Ellen has taken me in for a few days I came from Cuba where I have been spending the winter with Spanish friends—such delightful distinguished people the highest nobility of old Castile—how I wish you could know them But I was called away by our dear great friend here Dr Carver You dont know Dr Agathon Carver founder of the Valley of Love Community
Dr Carver inclined his leonine head and the Marchioness continued Ah New York—New York—how little the life of the spirit has reached it But I see you do know Mr Winsett
Oh yes—I reached him some time ago but not by that route Winsett said with his dry smile
The Marchioness shook her head reprovingly How do you know Mr Winsett The spirit bloweth where it listeth
List—oh list interjected Dr Carver in a stentorian murmur
But do sit down Mr Archer We four have been having a delightful little dinner together and my child has gone up to dress She expects you she will be down in a moment We were just admiring these marvellous flowers which will surprise her when she reappears
Winsett remained on his feet Im afraid I must be off Please tell Madame Olenska that we shall all feel lost when she abandons our street This house has been an oasis
Ah but she wont abandon YOU Poetry and art are the breath of life to her It IS poetry you write Mr Winsett
Well no but I sometimes read it said Winsett including the group in a general nod and slipping out of the room
A caustic spirit—un peu sauvage But so witty Dr Carver you DO think him witty
I never think of wit said Dr Carver severely
Ah—ah—you never think of wit How merciless he is to us weak mortals Mr Archer But he lives only in the life of the spirit and tonight he is mentally preparing the lecture he is to deliver presently at Mrs Blenkers Dr Carver would there be time before you start for the Blenkers to explain to Mr Archer your illuminating discovery of the Direct Contact But no I see it is nearly nine oclock and we have no right to detain you while so many are waiting for your message
Dr Carver looked slightly disappointed at this conclusion but having compared his ponderous gold timepiece with Madame Olenskas little travellingclock he reluctantly gathered up his mighty limbs for departure
I shall see you later dear friend he suggested to the Marchioness who replied with a smile As soon as Ellens carriage comes I will join you I do hope the lecture wont have begun
Dr Carver looked thoughtfully at Archer Perhaps if this young gentleman is interested in my experiences Mrs Blenker might allow you to bring him with you
Oh dear friend if it were possible—I am sure she would be too happy But I fear my Ellen counts on Mr Archer herself
That said Dr Carver is unfortunate—but here is my card He handed it to Archer who read on it in Gothic characters
—————————————
Agathon Carver
The Valley of Love
Kittasquattamy N Y
—————————————
Dr Carver bowed himself out and Mrs Manson with a sigh that might have been either of regret or relief again waved Archer to a seat
Ellen will be down in a moment and before she comes I am so glad of this quiet moment with you
Archer murmured his pleasure at their meeting and the Marchioness continued in her low sighing accents I know everything dear Mr Archer—my child has told me all you have done for her Your wise advice your courageous firmness—thank heaven it was not too late
The young man listened with considerable embarrassment Was there any one he wondered to whom Madame Olenska had not proclaimed his intervention in her private affairs
Madame Olenska exaggerates I simply gave her a legal opinion as she asked me to
Ah but in doing it—in doing it you were the unconscious instrument of—of—what word have we moderns for Providence Mr Archer cried the lady tilting her head on one side and drooping her lids mysteriously Little did you know that at that very moment I was being appealed to being approached in fact—from the other side of the Atlantic
She glanced over her shoulder as though fearful of being overheard and then drawing her chair nearer and raising a tiny ivory fan to her lips breathed behind it By the Count himself—my poor mad foolish Olenski who asks only to take her back on her own terms
Good God Archer exclaimed springing up
You are horrified Yes of course I understand I dont defend poor Stanislas though he has always called me his best friend He does not defend himself—he casts himself at her feet in my person She tapped her emaciated bosom I have his letter here
A letter—Has Madame Olenska seen it Archer stammered his brain whirling with the shock of the announcement
The Marchioness Manson shook her head softly Time—time I must have time I know my Ellen—haughty intractable shall I say just a shade unforgiving
But good heavens to forgive is one thing to go back into that hell—
Ah yes the Marchioness acquiesced So she describes it—my sensitive child But on the material side Mr Archer if one may stoop to consider such things do you know what she is giving up Those roses there on the sofa—acres like them under glass and in the open in his matchless terraced gardens at Nice Jewels—historic pearls the Sobieski emeralds—sables—but she cares nothing for all these Art and beauty those she does care for she lives for as I always have and those also surrounded her Pictures priceless furniture music brilliant conversation—ah that my dear young man if youll excuse me is what youve no conception of here And she had it all and the homage of the greatest She tells me she is not thought handsome in New York—good heavens Her portrait has been painted nine times the greatest artists in Europe have begged for the privilege Are these things nothing And the remorse of an adoring husband
As the Marchioness Manson rose to her climax her face assumed an expression of ecstatic retrospection which would have moved Archers mirth had he not been numb with amazement
He would have laughed if any one had foretold to him that his first sight of poor Medora Manson would have been in the guise of a messenger of Satan but he was in no mood for laughing now and she seemed to him to come straight out of the hell from which Ellen Olenska had just escaped
She knows nothing yet—of all this he asked abruptly
Mrs Manson laid a purple finger on her lips Nothing directly—but does she suspect Who can tell The truth is Mr Archer I have been waiting to see you From the moment I heard of the firm stand you had taken and of your influence over her I hoped it might be possible to count on your support—to convince you
That she ought to go back I would rather see her dead cried the young man violently
Ah the Marchioness murmured without visible resentment For a while she sat in her armchair opening and shutting the absurd ivory fan between her mittened fingers but suddenly she lifted her head and listened
Here she comes she said in a rapid whisper and then pointing to the bouquet on the sofa Am I to understand that you prefer THAT Mr Archer After all marriage is marriage and my niece is still a wife
XVIII
What are you two plotting together aunt Medora Madame Olenska cried as she came into the room
She was dressed as if for a ball Everything about her shimmered and glimmered softly as if her dress had been woven out of candlebeams and she carried her head high like a pretty woman challenging a roomful of rivals
We were saying my dear that here was something beautiful to surprise you with Mrs Manson rejoined rising to her feet and pointing archly to the flowers
Madame Olenska stopped short and looked at the bouquet Her colour did not change but a sort of white radiance of anger ran over her like summer lightning Ah she exclaimed in a shrill voice that the young man had never heard who is ridiculous enough to send me a bouquet Why a bouquet And why tonight of all nights I am not going to a ball I am not a girl engaged to be married But some people are always ridiculous
She turned back to the door opened it and called out Nastasia
The ubiquitous handmaiden promptly appeared and Archer heard Madame Olenska say in an Italian that she seemed to pronounce with intentional deliberateness in order that he might follow it Here—throw this into the dustbin and then as Nastasia stared protestingly But no—its not the fault of the poor flowers Tell the boy to carry them to the house three doors away the house of Mr Winsett the dark gentleman who dined here His wife is ill—they may give her pleasure The boy is out you say Then my dear one run yourself here put my cloak over you and fly I want the thing out of the house immediately And as you live dont say they come from me
She flung her velvet opera cloak over the maids shoulders and turned back into the drawingroom shutting the door sharply Her bosom was rising high under its lace and for a moment Archer thought she was about to cry but she burst into a laugh instead and looking from the Marchioness to Archer asked abruptly And you two—have you made friends
Its for Mr Archer to say darling he has waited patiently while you were dressing
Yes—I gave you time enough my hair wouldnt go Madame Olenska said raising her hand to the heapedup curls of her chignon But that reminds me I see Dr Carver is gone and youll be late at the Blenkers Mr Archer will you put my aunt in the carriage
She followed the Marchioness into the hall saw her fitted into a miscellaneous heap of overshoes shawls and tippets and called from the doorstep Mind the carriage is to be back for me at ten Then she returned to the drawingroom where Archer on reentering it found her standing by the mantelpiece examining herself in the mirror It was not usual in New York society for a lady to address her parlourmaid as my dear one and send her out on an errand wrapped in her own operacloak and Archer through all his deeper feelings tasted the pleasurable excitement of being in a world where action followed on emotion with such Olympian speed
Madame Olenska did not move when he came up behind her and for a second their eyes met in the mirror then she turned threw herself into her sofacorner and sighed out Theres time for a cigarette
He handed her the box and lit a spill for her and as the flame flashed up into her face she glanced at him with laughing eyes and said What do you think of me in a temper
Archer paused a moment then he answered with sudden resolution It makes me understand what your aunt has been saying about you
I knew shed been talking about me Well
She said you were used to all kinds of things—splendours and amusements and excitements—that we could never hope to give you here
Madame Olenska smiled faintly into the circle of smoke about her lips
Medora is incorrigibly romantic It has made up to her for so many things
Archer hesitated again and again took his risk Is your aunts romanticism always consistent with accuracy
You mean does she speak the truth Her niece considered Well Ill tell you in almost everything she says theres something true and something untrue But why do you ask What has she been telling you
He looked away into the fire and then back at her shining presence His heart tightened with the thought that this was their last evening by that fireside and that in a moment the carriage would come to carry her away
She says—she pretends that Count Olenski has asked her to persuade you to go back to him
Madame Olenska made no answer She sat motionless holding her cigarette in her halflifted hand The expression of her face had not changed and Archer remembered that he had before noticed her apparent incapacity for surprise
You knew then he broke out
She was silent for so long that the ash dropped from her cigarette She brushed it to the floor She has hinted about a letter poor darling Medoras hints—
Is it at your husbands request that she has arrived here suddenly
Madame Olenska seemed to consider this question also There again one cant tell She told me she had had a spiritual summons whatever that is from Dr Carver Im afraid shes going to marry Dr Carver poor Medora theres always some one she wants to marry But perhaps the people in Cuba just got tired of her I think she was with them as a sort of paid companion Really I dont know why she came
But you do believe she has a letter from your husband
Again Madame Olenska brooded silently then she said After all it was to be expected
The young man rose and went to lean against the fireplace A sudden restlessness possessed him and he was tonguetied by the sense that their minutes were numbered and that at any moment he might hear the wheels of the returning carriage
You know that your aunt believes you will go back
Madame Olenska raised her head quickly A deep blush rose to her face and spread over her neck and shoulders She blushed seldom and painfully as if it hurt her like a burn
Many cruel things have been believed of me she said
Oh Ellen—forgive me Im a fool and a brute
She smiled a little You are horribly nervous you have your own troubles I know you think the Wellands are unreasonable about your marriage and of course I agree with you In Europe people dont understand our long American engagements I suppose they are not as calm as we are She pronounced the we with a faint emphasis that gave it an ironic sound
Archer felt the irony but did not dare to take it up After all she had perhaps purposely deflected the conversation from her own affairs and after the pain his last words had evidently caused her he felt that all he could do was to follow her lead But the sense of the waning hour made him desperate he could not bear the thought that a barrier of words should drop between them again
Yes he said abruptly I went south to ask May to marry me after Easter Theres no reason why we shouldnt be married then
And May adores you—and yet you couldnt convince her I thought her too intelligent to be the slave of such absurd superstitions
She IS too intelligent—shes not their slave
Madame Olenska looked at him Well then—I dont understand
Archer reddened and hurried on with a rush We had a frank talk—almost the first She thinks my impatience a bad sign
Merciful heavens—a bad sign
She thinks it means that I cant trust myself to go on caring for her She thinks in short I want to marry her at once to get away from some one that I—care for more
Madame Olenska examined this curiously But if she thinks that—why isnt she in a hurry too
Because shes not like that shes so much nobler She insists all the more on the long engagement to give me time—
Time to give her up for the other woman
If I want to
Madame Olenska leaned toward the fire and gazed into it with fixed eyes Down the quiet street Archer heard the approaching trot of her horses
That IS noble she said with a slight break in her voice
Yes But its ridiculous
Ridiculous Because you dont care for any one else
Because I dont mean to marry any one else
Ah There was another long interval At length she looked up at him and asked This other woman—does she love you
Oh theres no other woman I mean the person that May was thinking of is—was never—
Then why after all are you in such haste
Theres your carriage said Archer
She halfrose and looked about her with absent eyes Her fan and gloves lay on the sofa beside her and she picked them up mechanically
Yes I suppose I must be going
Youre going to Mrs Strutherss
Yes She smiled and added I must go where I am invited or I should be too lonely Why not come with me
Archer felt that at any cost he must keep her beside him must make her give him the rest of her evening Ignoring her question he continued to lean against the chimneypiece his eyes fixed on the hand in which she held her gloves and fan as if watching to see if he had the power to make her drop them
May guessed the truth he said There is another woman—but not the one she thinks
Ellen Olenska made no answer and did not move After a moment he sat down beside her and taking her hand softly unclasped it so that the gloves and fan fell on the sofa between them
She started up and freeing herself from him moved away to the other side of the hearth Ah dont make love to me Too many people have done that she said frowning
Archer changing colour stood up also it was the bitterest rebuke she could have given him I have never made love to you he said and I never shall But you are the woman I would have married if it had been possible for either of us
Possible for either of us She looked at him with unfeigned astonishment And you say that—when its you whove made it impossible
He stared at her groping in a blackness through which a single arrow of light tore its blinding way
IVE made it impossible—
You you YOU she cried her lip trembling like a childs on the verge of tears Isnt it you who made me give up divorcing—give it up because you showed me how selfish and wicked it was how one must sacrifice ones self to preserve the dignity of marriage and to spare ones family the publicity the scandal And because my family was going to be your family—for Mays sake and for yours—I did what you told me what you proved to me that I ought to do Ah she broke out with a sudden laugh Ive made no secret of having done it for you
She sank down on the sofa again crouching among the festive ripples of her dress like a stricken masquerader and the young man stood by the fireplace and continued to gaze at her without moving
Good God he groaned When I thought—
You thought
Ah dont ask me what I thought
Still looking at her he saw the same burning flush creep up her neck to her face She sat upright facing him with a rigid dignity
I do ask you
Well then there were things in that letter you asked me to read—
My husbands letter
Yes
I had nothing to fear from that letter absolutely nothing All I feared was to bring notoriety scandal on the family—on you and May
Good God he groaned again bowing his face in his hands
The silence that followed lay on them with the weight of things final and irrevocable It seemed to Archer to be crushing him down like his own gravestone in all the wide future he saw nothing that would ever lift that load from his heart He did not move from his place or raise his head from his hands his hidden eyeballs went on staring into utter darkness
At least I loved you— he brought out
On the other side of the hearth from the sofacorner where he supposed that she still crouched he heard a faint stifled crying like a childs He started up and came to her side
Ellen What madness Why are you crying Nothings done that cant be undone Im still free and youre going to be He had her in his arms her face like a wet flower at his lips and all their vain terrors shrivelling up like ghosts at sunrise The one thing that astonished him now was that he should have stood for five minutes arguing with her across the width of the room when just touching her made everything so simple
She gave him back all his kiss but after a moment he felt her stiffening in his arms and she put him aside and stood up
Ah my poor Newland—I suppose this had to be But it doesnt in the least alter things she said looking down at him in her turn from the hearth
It alters the whole of life for me
No no—it mustnt it cant Youre engaged to May Welland and Im married
He stood up too flushed and resolute Nonsense Its too late for that sort of thing Weve no right to lie to other people or to ourselves We wont talk of your marriage but do you see me marrying May after this
She stood silent resting her thin elbows on the mantelpiece her profile reflected in the glass behind her One of the locks of her chignon had become loosened and hung on her neck she looked haggard and almost old
I dont see you she said at length putting that question to May Do you
He gave a reckless shrug Its too late to do anything else
You say that because its the easiest thing to say at this moment—not because its true In reality its too late to do anything but what wed both decided on
Ah I dont understand you
She forced a pitiful smile that pinched her face instead of smoothing it You dont understand because you havent yet guessed how youve changed things for me oh from the first—long before I knew all youd done
All Id done
Yes I was perfectly unconscious at first that people here were shy of me—that they thought I was a dreadful sort of person It seems they had even refused to meet me at dinner I found that out afterward and how youd made your mother go with you to the van der Luydens and how youd insisted on announcing your engagement at the Beaufort ball so that I might have two families to stand by me instead of one—
At that he broke into a laugh
Just imagine she said how stupid and unobservant I was I knew nothing of all this till Granny blurted it out one day New York simply meant peace and freedom to me it was coming home And I was so happy at being among my own people that every one I met seemed kind and good and glad to see me But from the very beginning she continued I felt there was no one as kind as you no one who gave me reasons that I understood for doing what at first seemed so hard and—unnecessary The very good people didnt convince me I felt theyd never been tempted But you knew you understood you had felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands—and yet you hated the things it asks of one you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference That was what Id never known before—and its better than anything Ive known
She spoke in a low even voice without tears or visible agitation and each word as it dropped from her fell into his breast like burning lead He sat bowed over his head between his hands staring at the hearthrug and at the tip of the satin shoe that showed under her dress Suddenly he knelt down and kissed the shoe
She bent over him laying her hands on his shoulders and looking at him with eyes so deep that he remained motionless under her gaze
Ah dont let us undo what youve done she cried I cant go back now to that other way of thinking I cant love you unless I give you up
His arms were yearning up to her but she drew away and they remained facing each other divided by the distance that her words had created Then abruptly his anger overflowed
And Beaufort Is he to replace me
As the words sprang out he was prepared for an answering flare of anger and he would have welcomed it as fuel for his own But Madame Olenska only grew a shade paler and stood with her arms hanging down before her and her head slightly bent as her way was when she pondered a question
Hes waiting for you now at Mrs Strutherss why dont you go to him Archer sneered
She turned to ring the bell I shall not go out this evening tell the carriage to go and fetch the Signora Marchesa she said when the maid came
After the door had closed again Archer continued to look at her with bitter eyes Why this sacrifice Since you tell me that youre lonely Ive no right to keep you from your friends
She smiled a little under her wet lashes I shant be lonely now I WAS lonely I WAS afraid But the emptiness and the darkness are gone when I turn back into myself now Im like a child going at night into a room where theres always a light
Her tone and her look still enveloped her in a soft inaccessibility and Archer groaned out again I dont understand you
Yet you understand May
He reddened under the retort but kept his eyes on her May is ready to give me up
What Three days after youve entreated her on your knees to hasten your marriage
Shes refused that gives me the right—
Ah youve taught me what an ugly word that is she said
He turned away with a sense of utter weariness He felt as though he had been struggling for hours up the face of a steep precipice and now just as he had fought his way to the top his hold had given way and he was pitching down headlong into darkness
If he could have got her in his arms again he might have swept away her arguments but she still held him at a distance by something inscrutably aloof in her look and attitude and by his own awed sense of her sincerity At length he began to plead again
If we do this now it will be worse afterward—worse for every one—
No—no—no she almost screamed as if he frightened her
At that moment the bell sent a long tinkle through the house They had heard no carriage stopping at the door and they stood motionless looking at each other with startled eyes
Outside Nastasias step crossed the hall the outer door opened and a moment later she came in carrying a telegram which she handed to the Countess Olenska
The lady was very happy at the flowers Nastasia said smoothing her apron She thought it was her signor marito who had sent them and she cried a little and said it was a folly
Her mistress smiled and took the yellow envelope She tore it open and carried it to the lamp then when the door had closed again she handed the telegram to Archer
It was dated from St Augustine and addressed to the Countess Olenska In it he read Grannys telegram successful Papa and Mamma agree marriage after Easter Am telegraphing Newland Am too happy for words and love you dearly Your grateful May
Half an hour later when Archer unlocked his own frontdoor he found a similar envelope on the halltable on top of his pile of notes and letters The message inside the envelope was also from May Welland and ran as follows Parents consent wedding Tuesday after Easter at twelve Grace Church eight bridesmaids please see Rector so happy love May
Archer crumpled up the yellow sheet as if the gesture could annihilate the news it contained Then he pulled out a small pocketdiary and turned over the pages with trembling fingers but he did not find what he wanted and cramming the telegram into his pocket he mounted the stairs
A light was shining through the door of the little hallroom which served Janey as a dressingroom and boudoir and her brother rapped impatiently on the panel The door opened and his sister stood before him in her immemorial purple flannel dressinggown with her hair on pins Her face looked pale and apprehensive
Newland I hope theres no bad news in that telegram I waited on purpose in case— No item of his correspondence was safe from Janey
He took no notice of her question Look here—what day is Easter this year
She looked shocked at such unchristian ignorance Easter Newland Why of course the first week in April Why
The first week He turned again to the pages of his diary calculating rapidly under his breath The first week did you say He threw back his head with a long laugh
For mercys sake whats the matter
Nothings the matter except that Im going to be married in a month
Janey fell upon his neck and pressed him to her purple flannel breast Oh Newland how wonderful Im so glad But dearest why do you keep on laughing Do hush or youll wake Mamma
Book II
XIX
The day was fresh with a lively spring wind full of dust All the old ladies in both families had got out their faded sables and yellowing ermines and the smell of camphor from the front pews almost smothered the faint spring scent of the lilies banking the altar
Newland Archer at a signal from the sexton had come out of the vestry and placed himself with his best man on the chancel step of Grace Church
The signal meant that the brougham bearing the bride and her father was in sight but there was sure to be a considerable interval of adjustment and consultation in the lobby where the bridesmaids were already hovering like a cluster of Easter blossoms During this unavoidable lapse of time the bridegroom in proof of his eagerness was expected to expose himself alone to the gaze of the assembled company and Archer had gone through this formality as resignedly as through all the others which made of a nineteenth century New York wedding a rite that seemed to belong to the dawn of history Everything was equally easy—or equally painful as one chose to put it—in the path he was committed to tread and he had obeyed the flurried injunctions of his best man as piously as other bridegrooms had obeyed his own in the days when he had guided them through the same labyrinth
So far he was reasonably sure of having fulfilled all his obligations The bridesmaids eight bouquets of white lilac and liliesofthevalley had been sent in due time as well as the gold and sapphire sleevelinks of the eight ushers and the best mans catseye scarfpin Archer had sat up half the night trying to vary the wording of his thanks for the last batch of presents from men friends and exladyloves the fees for the Bishop and the Rector were safely in the pocket of his best man his own luggage was already at Mrs Manson Mingotts where the weddingbreakfast was to take place and so were the travelling clothes into which he was to change and a private compartment had been engaged in the train that was to carry the young couple to their unknown destination—concealment of the spot in which the bridal night was to be spent being one of the most sacred taboos of the prehistoric ritual
Got the ring all right whispered young van der Luyden Newland who was inexperienced in the duties of a best man and awed by the weight of his responsibility
Archer made the gesture which he had seen so many bridegrooms make with his ungloved right hand he felt in the pocket of his dark grey waistcoat and assured himself that the little gold circlet engraved inside Newland to May April — 187 was in its place then resuming his former attitude his tall hat and pearlgrey gloves with black stitchings grasped in his left hand he stood looking at the door of the church
Overhead Handels March swelled pompously through the imitation stone vaulting carrying on its waves the faded drift of the many weddings at which with cheerful indifference he had stood on the same chancel step watching other brides float up the nave toward other bridegrooms
How like a first night at the Opera he thought recognising all the same faces in the same boxes no pews and wondering if when the Last Trump sounded Mrs Selfridge Merry would be there with the same towering ostrich feathers in her bonnet and Mrs Beaufort with the same diamond earrings and the same smile—and whether suitable proscenium seats were already prepared for them in another world
After that there was still time to review one by one the familiar countenances in the first rows the womens sharp with curiosity and excitement the mens sulky with the obligation of having to put on their frockcoats before luncheon and fight for food at the weddingbreakfast
Too bad the breakfast is at old Catherines the bridegroom could fancy Reggie Chivers saying But Im told that Lovell Mingott insisted on its being cooked by his own chef so it ought to be good if one can only get at it And he could imagine Sillerton Jackson adding with authority My dear fellow havent you heard Its to be served at small tables in the new English fashion
Archers eyes lingered a moment on the lefthand pew where his mother who had entered the church on Mr Henry van der Luydens arm sat weeping softly under her Chantilly veil her hands in her grandmothers ermine muff
Poor Janey he thought looking at his sister even by screwing her head around she can see only the people in the few front pews and theyre mostly dowdy Newlands and Dagonets
On the hither side of the white ribbon dividing off the seats reserved for the families he saw Beaufort tall and redfaced scrutinising the women with his arrogant stare Beside him sat his wife all silvery chinchilla and violets and on the far side of the ribbon Lawrence Leffertss sleekly brushed head seemed to mount guard over the invisible deity of Good Form who presided at the ceremony
Archer wondered how many flaws Leffertss keen eyes would discover in the ritual of his divinity then he suddenly recalled that he too had once thought such questions important The things that had filled his days seemed now like a nursery parody of life or like the wrangles of mediaeval schoolmen over metaphysical terms that nobody had ever understood A stormy discussion as to whether the wedding presents should be shown had darkened the last hours before the wedding and it seemed inconceivable to Archer that grownup people should work themselves into a state of agitation over such trifles and that the matter should have been decided in the negative by Mrs Wellands saying with indignant tears I should as soon turn the reporters loose in my house Yet there was a time when Archer had had definite and rather aggressive opinions on all such problems and when everything concerning the manners and customs of his little tribe had seemed to him fraught with worldwide significance
And all the while I suppose he thought real people were living somewhere and real things happening to them
THERE THEY COME breathed the best man excitedly but the bridegroom knew better
The cautious opening of the door of the church meant only that Mr Brown the liverystable keeper gowned in black in his intermittent character of sexton was taking a preliminary survey of the scene before marshalling his forces The door was softly shut again then after another interval it swung majestically open and a murmur ran through the church The family
Mrs Welland came first on the arm of her eldest son Her large pink face was appropriately solemn and her plumcoloured satin with pale blue sidepanels and blue ostrich plumes in a small satin bonnet met with general approval but before she had settled herself with a stately rustle in the pew opposite Mrs Archers the spectators were craning their necks to see who was coming after her Wild rumours had been abroad the day before to the effect that Mrs Manson Mingott in spite of her physical disabilities had resolved on being present at the ceremony and the idea was so much in keeping with her sporting character that bets ran high at the clubs as to her being able to walk up the nave and squeeze into a seat It was known that she had insisted on sending her own carpenter to look into the possibility of taking down the end panel of the front pew and to measure the space between the seat and the front but the result had been discouraging and for one anxious day her family had watched her dallying with the plan of being wheeled up the nave in her enormous Bath chair and sitting enthroned in it at the foot of the chancel
The idea of this monstrous exposure of her person was so painful to her relations that they could have covered with gold the ingenious person who suddenly discovered that the chair was too wide to pass between the iron uprights of the awning which extended from the church door to the curbstone The idea of doing away with this awning and revealing the bride to the mob of dressmakers and newspaper reporters who stood outside fighting to get near the joints of the canvas exceeded even old Catherines courage though for a moment she had weighed the possibility Why they might take a photograph of my child AND PUT IT IN THE PAPERS Mrs Welland exclaimed when her mothers last plan was hinted to her and from this unthinkable indecency the clan recoiled with a collective shudder The ancestress had had to give in but her concession was bought only by the promise that the weddingbreakfast should take place under her roof though as the Washington Square connection said with the Wellands house in easy reach it was hard to have to make a special price with Brown to drive one to the other end of nowhere
Though all these transactions had been widely reported by the Jacksons a sporting minority still clung to the belief that old Catherine would appear in church and there was a distinct lowering of the temperature when she was found to have been replaced by her daughterinlaw Mrs Lovell Mingott had the high colour and glassy stare induced in ladies of her age and habit by the effort of getting into a new dress but once the disappointment occasioned by her motherinlaws nonappearance had subsided it was agreed that her black Chantilly over lilac satin with a bonnet of Parma violets formed the happiest contrast to Mrs Wellands blue and plumcolour Far different was the impression produced by the gaunt and mincing lady who followed on Mr Mingotts arm in a wild dishevelment of stripes and fringes and floating scarves and as this last apparition glided into view Archers heart contracted and stopped beating
He had taken it for granted that the Marchioness Manson was still in Washington where she had gone some four weeks previously with her niece Madame Olenska It was generally understood that their abrupt departure was due to Madame Olenskas desire to remove her aunt from the baleful eloquence of Dr Agathon Carver who had nearly succeeded in enlisting her as a recruit for the Valley of Love and in the circumstances no one had expected either of the ladies to return for the wedding For a moment Archer stood with his eyes fixed on Medoras fantastic figure straining to see who came behind her but the little procession was at an end for all the lesser members of the family had taken their seats and the eight tall ushers gathering themselves together like birds or insects preparing for some migratory manoeuvre were already slipping through the side doors into the lobby
Newland—I say SHES HERE the best man whispered
Archer roused himself with a start
A long time had apparently passed since his heart had stopped beating for the white and rosy procession was in fact half way up the nave the Bishop the Rector and two whitewinged assistants were hovering about the flowerbanked altar and the first chords of the Spohr symphony were strewing their flowerlike notes before the bride
Archer opened his eyes but could they really have been shut as he imagined and felt his heart beginning to resume its usual task The music the scent of the lilies on the altar the vision of the cloud of tulle and orangeblossoms floating nearer and nearer the sight of Mrs Archers face suddenly convulsed with happy sobs the low benedictory murmur of the Rectors voice the ordered evolutions of the eight pink bridesmaids and the eight black ushers all these sights sounds and sensations so familiar in themselves so unutterably strange and meaningless in his new relation to them were confusedly mingled in his brain
My God he thought HAVE I got the ring—and once more he went through the bridegrooms convulsive gesture
Then in a moment May was beside him such radiance streaming from her that it sent a faint warmth through his numbness and he straightened himself and smiled into her eyes
Dearly beloved we are gathered together here the Rector began
The ring was on her hand the Bishops benediction had been given the bridesmaids were apoise to resume their place in the procession and the organ was showing preliminary symptoms of breaking out into the Mendelssohn March without which no newlywedded couple had ever emerged upon New York
Your arm—I SAY GIVE HER YOUR ARM young Newland nervously hissed and once more Archer became aware of having been adrift far off in the unknown What was it that had sent him there he wondered Perhaps the glimpse among the anonymous spectators in the transept of a dark coil of hair under a hat which a moment later revealed itself as belonging to an unknown lady with a long nose so laughably unlike the person whose image she had evoked that he asked himself if he were becoming subject to hallucinations
And now he and his wife were pacing slowly down the nave carried forward on the light Mendelssohn ripples the spring day beckoning to them through widely opened doors and Mrs Wellands chestnuts with big white favours on their frontlets curvetting and showing off at the far end of the canvas tunnel
The footman who had a still bigger white favour on his lapel wrapped Mays white cloak about her and Archer jumped into the brougham at her side She turned to him with a triumphant smile and their hands clasped under her veil
Darling Archer said—and suddenly the same black abyss yawned before him and he felt himself sinking into it deeper and deeper while his voice rambled on smoothly and cheerfully Yes of course I thought Id lost the ring no wedding would be complete if the poor devil of a bridegroom didnt go through that But you DID keep me waiting you know I had time to think of every horror that might possibly happen
She surprised him by turning in full Fifth Avenue and flinging her arms about his neck But none ever CAN happen now can it Newland as long as we two are together
Every detail of the day had been so carefully thought out that the young couple after the weddingbreakfast had ample time to put on their travellingclothes descend the wide Mingott stairs between laughing bridesmaids and weeping parents and get into the brougham under the traditional shower of rice and satin slippers and there was still half an hour left in which to drive to the station buy the last weeklies at the bookstall with the air of seasoned travellers and settle themselves in the reserved compartment in which Mays maid had already placed her dovecoloured travelling cloak and glaringly new dressingbag from London
The old du Lac aunts at Rhinebeck had put their house at the disposal of the bridal couple with a readiness inspired by the prospect of spending a week in New York with Mrs Archer and Archer glad to escape the usual bridal suite in a Philadelphia or Baltimore hotel had accepted with an equal alacrity
May was enchanted at the idea of going to the country and childishly amused at the vain efforts of the eight bridesmaids to discover where their mysterious retreat was situated It was thought very English to have a countryhouse lent to one and the fact gave a last touch of distinction to what was generally conceded to be the most brilliant wedding of the year but where the house was no one was permitted to know except the parents of bride and groom who when taxed with the knowledge pursed their lips and said mysteriously Ah they didnt tell us— which was manifestly true since there was no need to
Once they were settled in their compartment and the train shaking off the endless wooden suburbs had pushed out into the pale landscape of spring talk became easier than Archer had expected May was still in look and tone the simple girl of yesterday eager to compare notes with him as to the incidents of the wedding and discussing them as impartially as a bridesmaid talking it all over with an usher At first Archer had fancied that this detachment was the disguise of an inward tremor but her clear eyes revealed only the most tranquil unawareness She was alone for the first time with her husband but her husband was only the charming comrade of yesterday There was no one whom she liked as much no one whom she trusted as completely and the culminating lark of the whole delightful adventure of engagement and marriage was to be off with him alone on a journey like a grownup person like a married woman in fact
It was wonderful that—as he had learned in the Mission garden at St Augustine—such depths of feeling could coexist with such absence of imagination But he remembered how even then she had surprised him by dropping back to inexpressive girlishness as soon as her conscience had been eased of its burden and he saw that she would probably go through life dealing to the best of her ability with each experience as it came but never anticipating any by so much as a stolen glance
Perhaps that faculty of unawareness was what gave her eyes their transparency and her face the look of representing a type rather than a person as if she might have been chosen to pose for a Civic Virtue or a Greek goddess The blood that ran so close to her fair skin might have been a preserving fluid rather than a ravaging element yet her look of indestructible youthfulness made her seem neither hard nor dull but only primitive and pure In the thick of this meditation Archer suddenly felt himself looking at her with the startled gaze of a stranger and plunged into a reminiscence of the weddingbreakfast and of Granny Mingotts immense and triumphant pervasion of it
May settled down to frank enjoyment of the subject I was surprised though—werent you—that aunt Medora came after all Ellen wrote that they were neither of them well enough to take the journey I do wish it had been she who had recovered Did you see the exquisite old lace she sent me
He had known that the moment must come sooner or later but he had somewhat imagined that by force of willing he might hold it at bay
Yes—I—no yes it was beautiful he said looking at her blindly and wondering if whenever he heard those two syllables all his carefully builtup world would tumble about him like a house of cards
Arent you tired It will be good to have some tea when we arrive—Im sure the aunts have got everything beautifully ready he rattled on taking her hand in his and her mind rushed away instantly to the magnificent tea and coffee service of Baltimore silver which the Beauforts had sent and which went so perfectly with uncle Lovell Mingotts trays and sidedishes
In the spring twilight the train stopped at the Rhinebeck station and they walked along the platform to the waiting carriage
Ah how awfully kind of the van der Luydens—theyve sent their man over from Skuytercliff to meet us Archer exclaimed as a sedate person out of livery approached them and relieved the maid of her bags
Im extremely sorry sir said this emissary that a little accident has occurred at the Miss du Lacs a leak in the watertank It happened yesterday and Mr van der Luyden who heard of it this morning sent a housemaid up by the early train to get the Patroons house ready It will be quite comfortable I think youll find sir and the Miss du Lacs have sent their cook over so that it will be exactly the same as if youd been at Rhinebeck
Archer stared at the speaker so blankly that he repeated in still more apologetic accents Itll be exactly the same sir I do assure you— and Mays eager voice broke out covering the embarrassed silence The same as Rhinebeck The Patroons house But it will be a hundred thousand times better—wont it Newland Its too dear and kind of Mr van der Luyden to have thought of it
And as they drove off with the maid beside the coachman and their shining bridal bags on the seat before them she went on excitedly Only fancy Ive never been inside it—have you The van der Luydens show it to so few people But they opened it for Ellen it seems and she told me what a darling little place it was she says its the only house shes seen in America that she could imagine being perfectly happy in
Well—thats what were going to be isnt it cried her husband gaily and she answered with her boyish smile Ah its just our luck beginning—the wonderful luck were always going to have together
XX
Of course we must dine with Mrs Carfry dearest Archer said and his wife looked at him with an anxious frown across the monumental Britannia ware of their lodging house breakfasttable
In all the rainy desert of autumnal London there were only two people whom the Newland Archers knew and these two they had sedulously avoided in conformity with the old New York tradition that it was not dignified to force ones self on the notice of ones acquaintances in foreign countries
Mrs Archer and Janey in the course of their visits to Europe had so unflinchingly lived up to this principle and met the friendly advances of their fellowtravellers with an air of such impenetrable reserve that they had almost achieved the record of never having exchanged a word with a foreigner other than those employed in hotels and railwaystations Their own compatriots—save those previously known or properly accredited—they treated with an even more pronounced disdain so that unless they ran across a Chivers a Dagonet or a Mingott their months abroad were spent in an unbroken teteatete But the utmost precautions are sometimes unavailing and one night at Botzen one of the two English ladies in the room across the passage whose names dress and social situation were already intimately known to Janey had knocked on the door and asked if Mrs Archer had a bottle of liniment The other lady—the intruders sister Mrs Carfry—had been seized with a sudden attack of bronchitis and Mrs Archer who never travelled without a complete family pharmacy was fortunately able to produce the required remedy
Mrs Carfry was very ill and as she and her sister Miss Harle were travelling alone they were profoundly grateful to the Archer ladies who supplied them with ingenious comforts and whose efficient maid helped to nurse the invalid back to health
When the Archers left Botzen they had no idea of ever seeing Mrs Carfry and Miss Harle again Nothing to Mrs Archers mind would have been more undignified than to force ones self on the notice of a foreigner to whom one had happened to render an accidental service But Mrs Carfry and her sister to whom this point of view was unknown and who would have found it utterly incomprehensible felt themselves linked by an eternal gratitude to the delightful Americans who had been so kind at Botzen With touching fidelity they seized every chance of meeting Mrs Archer and Janey in the course of their continental travels and displayed a supernatural acuteness in finding out when they were to pass through London on their way to or from the States The intimacy became indissoluble and Mrs Archer and Janey whenever they alighted at Browns Hotel found themselves awaited by two affectionate friends who like themselves cultivated ferns in Wardian cases made macrame lace read the memoirs of the Baroness Bunsen and had views about the occupants of the leading London pulpits As Mrs Archer said it made another thing of London to know Mrs Carfry and Miss Harle and by the time that Newland became engaged the tie between the families was so firmly established that it was thought only right to send a wedding invitation to the two English ladies who sent in return a pretty bouquet of pressed Alpine flowers under glass And on the dock when Newland and his wife sailed for England Mrs Archers last word had been You must take May to see Mrs Carfry
Newland and his wife had had no idea of obeying this injunction but Mrs Carfry with her usual acuteness had run them down and sent them an invitation to dine and it was over this invitation that May Archer was wrinkling her brows across the tea and muffins
Its all very well for you Newland you KNOW them But I shall feel so shy among a lot of people Ive never met And what shall I wear
Newland leaned back in his chair and smiled at her She looked handsomer and more Dianalike than ever The moist English air seemed to have deepened the bloom of her cheeks and softened the slight hardness of her virginal features or else it was simply the inner glow of happiness shining through like a light under ice
Wear dearest I thought a trunkful of things had come from Paris last week
Yes of course I meant to say that I shant know WHICH to wear She pouted a little Ive never dined out in London and I dont want to be ridiculous
He tried to enter into her perplexity But dont Englishwomen dress just like everybody else in the evening
Newland How can you ask such funny questions When they go to the theatre in old balldresses and bare heads
Well perhaps they wear new balldresses at home but at any rate Mrs Carfry and Miss Harle wont Theyll wear caps like my mothers—and shawls very soft shawls
Yes but how will the other women be dressed
Not as well as you dear he rejoined wondering what had suddenly developed in her Janeys morbid interest in clothes
She pushed back her chair with a sigh Thats dear of you Newland but it doesnt help me much
He had an inspiration Why not wear your weddingdress That cant be wrong can it
Oh dearest If I only had it here But its gone to Paris to be made over for next winter and Worth hasnt sent it back
Oh well— said Archer getting up Look here—the fogs lifting If we made a dash for the National Gallery we might manage to catch a glimpse of the pictures
The Newland Archers were on their way home after a three months weddingtour which May in writing to her girl friends vaguely summarised as blissful
They had not gone to the Italian Lakes on reflection Archer had not been able to picture his wife in that particular setting Her own inclination after a month with the Paris dressmakers was for mountaineering in July and swimming in August This plan they punctually fulfilled spending July at Interlaken and Grindelwald and August at a little place called Etretat on the Normandy coast which some one had recommended as quaint and quiet Once or twice in the mountains Archer had pointed southward and said Theres Italy and May her feet in a gentianbed had smiled cheerfully and replied It would be lovely to go there next winter if only you didnt have to be in New York
But in reality travelling interested her even less than he had expected She regarded it once her clothes were ordered as merely an enlarged opportunity for walking riding swimming and trying her hand at the fascinating new game of lawn tennis and when they finally got back to London where they were to spend a fortnight while he ordered HIS clothes she no longer concealed the eagerness with which she looked forward to sailing
In London nothing interested her but the theatres and the shops and she found the theatres less exciting than the Paris cafes chantants where under the blossoming horsechestnuts of the Champs Elysees she had had the novel experience of looking down from the restaurant terrace on an audience of cocottes and having her husband interpret to her as much of the songs as he thought suitable for bridal ears
Archer had reverted to all his old inherited ideas about marriage It was less trouble to conform with the tradition and treat May exactly as all his friends treated their wives than to try to put into practice the theories with which his untrammelled bachelorhood had dallied There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free and he had long since discovered that Mays only use of the liberty she supposed herself to possess would be to lay it on the altar of her wifely adoration Her innate dignity would always keep her from making the gift abjectly and a day might even come as it once had when she would find strength to take it altogether back if she thought she were doing it for his own good But with a conception of marriage so uncomplicated and incurious as hers such a crisis could be brought about only by something visibly outrageous in his own conduct and the fineness of her feeling for him made that unthinkable Whatever happened he knew she would always be loyal gallant and unresentful and that pledged him to the practice of the same virtues
All this tended to draw him back into his old habits of mind If her simplicity had been the simplicity of pettiness he would have chafed and rebelled but since the lines of her character though so few were on the same fine mould as her face she became the tutelary divinity of all his old traditions and reverences
Such qualities were scarcely of the kind to enliven foreign travel though they made her so easy and pleasant a companion but he saw at once how they would fall into place in their proper setting He had no fear of being oppressed by them for his artistic and intellectual life would go on as it always had outside the domestic circle and within it there would be nothing small and stifling—coming back to his wife would never be like entering a stuffy room after a tramp in the open And when they had children the vacant corners in both their lives would be filled
All these things went through his mind during their long slow drive from Mayfair to South Kensington where Mrs Carfry and her sister lived Archer too would have preferred to escape their friends hospitality in conformity with the family tradition he had always travelled as a sightseer and lookeron affecting a haughty unconsciousness of the presence of his fellowbeings Once only just after Harvard he had spent a few gay weeks at Florence with a band of queer Europeanised Americans dancing all night with titled ladies in palaces and gambling half the day with the rakes and dandies of the fashionable club but it had all seemed to him though the greatest fun in the world as unreal as a carnival These queer cosmopolitan women deep in complicated loveaffairs which they appeared to feel the need of retailing to every one they met and the magnificent young officers and elderly dyed wits who were the subjects or the recipients of their confidences were too different from the people Archer had grown up among too much like expensive and rather malodorous hothouse exotics to detain his imagination long To introduce his wife into such a society was out of the question and in the course of his travels no other had shown any marked eagerness for his company
Not long after their arrival in London he had run across the Duke of St Austrey and the Duke instantly and cordially recognising him had said Look me up wont you—but no properspirited American would have considered that a suggestion to be acted on and the meeting was without a sequel They had even managed to avoid Mays English aunt the bankers wife who was still in Yorkshire in fact they had purposely postponed going to London till the autumn in order that their arrival during the season might not appear pushing and snobbish to these unknown relatives
Probably therell be nobody at Mrs Carfrys—Londons a desert at this season and youve made yourself much too beautiful Archer said to May who sat at his side in the hansom so spotlessly splendid in her skyblue cloak edged with swansdown that it seemed wicked to expose her to the London grime
I dont want them to think that we dress like savages she replied with a scorn that Pocahontas might have resented and he was struck again by the religious reverence of even the most unworldly American women for the social advantages of dress
Its their armour he thought their defence against the unknown and their defiance of it And he understood for the first time the earnestness with which May who was incapable of tying a ribbon in her hair to charm him had gone through the solemn rite of selecting and ordering her extensive wardrobe
He had been right in expecting the party at Mrs Carfrys to be a small one Besides their hostess and her sister they found in the long chilly drawingroom only another shawled lady a genial Vicar who was her husband a silent lad whom Mrs Carfry named as her nephew and a small dark gentleman with lively eyes whom she introduced as his tutor pronouncing a French name as she did so
Into this dimlylit and dimfeatured group May Archer floated like a swan with the sunset on her she seemed larger fairer more voluminously rustling than her husband had ever seen her and he perceived that the rosiness and rustlingness were the tokens of an extreme and infantile shyness
What on earth will they expect me to talk about her helpless eyes implored him at the very moment that her dazzling apparition was calling forth the same anxiety in their own bosoms But beauty even when distrustful of itself awakens confidence in the manly heart and the Vicar and the Frenchnamed tutor were soon manifesting to May their desire to put her at her ease
In spite of their best efforts however the dinner was a languishing affair Archer noticed that his wifes way of showing herself at her ease with foreigners was to become more uncompromisingly local in her references so that though her loveliness was an encouragement to admiration her conversation was a chill to repartee The Vicar soon abandoned the struggle but the tutor who spoke the most fluent and accomplished English gallantly continued to pour it out to her until the ladies to the manifest relief of all concerned went up to the drawingroom
The Vicar after a glass of port was obliged to hurry away to a meeting and the shy nephew who appeared to be an invalid was packed off to bed But Archer and the tutor continued to sit over their wine and suddenly Archer found himself talking as he had not done since his last symposium with Ned Winsett The Carfry nephew it turned out had been threatened with consumption and had had to leave Harrow for Switzerland where he had spent two years in the milder air of Lake Leman Being a bookish youth he had been entrusted to M Riviere who had brought him back to England and was to remain with him till he went up to Oxford the following spring and M Riviere added with simplicity that he should then have to look out for another job
It seemed impossible Archer thought that he should be long without one so varied were his interests and so many his gifts He was a man of about thirty with a thin ugly face May would certainly have called him commonlooking to which the play of his ideas gave an intense expressiveness but there was nothing frivolous or cheap in his animation
His father who had died young had filled a small diplomatic post and it had been intended that the son should follow the same career but an insatiable taste for letters had thrown the young man into journalism then into authorship apparently unsuccessful and at length—after other experiments and vicissitudes which he spared his listener—into tutoring English youths in Switzerland Before that however he had lived much in Paris frequented the Goncourt grenier been advised by Maupassant not to attempt to write even that seemed to Archer a dazzling honour and had often talked with Merimee in his mothers house He had obviously always been desperately poor and anxious having a mother and an unmarried sister to provide for and it was apparent that his literary ambitions had failed His situation in fact seemed materially speaking no more brilliant than Ned Winsetts but he had lived in a world in which as he said no one who loved ideas need hunger mentally As it was precisely of that love that poor Winsett was starving to death Archer looked with a sort of vicarious envy at this eager impecunious young man who had fared so richly in his poverty
You see Monsieur its worth everything isnt it to keep ones intellectual liberty not to enslave ones powers of appreciation ones critical independence It was because of that that I abandoned journalism and took to so much duller work tutoring and private secretaryship There is a good deal of drudgery of course but one preserves ones moral freedom what we call in French ones quant a soi And when one hears good talk one can join in it without compromising any opinions but ones own or one can listen and answer it inwardly Ah good conversation—theres nothing like it is there The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing And so I have never regretted giving up either diplomacy or journalism—two different forms of the same selfabdication He fixed his vivid eyes on Archer as he lit another cigarette Voyezvous Monsieur to be able to look life in the face thats worth living in a garret for isnt it But after all one must earn enough to pay for the garret and I confess that to grow old as a private tutor—or a private anything—is almost as chilling to the imagination as a second secretaryship at Bucharest Sometimes I feel I must make a plunge an immense plunge Do you suppose for instance there would be any opening for me in America—in New York
Archer looked at him with startled eyes New York for a young man who had frequented the Goncourts and Flaubert and who thought the life of ideas the only one worth living He continued to stare at M Riviere perplexedly wondering how to tell him that his very superiorities and advantages would be the surest hindrance to success
New York—New York—but must it be especially New York he stammered utterly unable to imagine what lucrative opening his native city could offer to a young man to whom good conversation appeared to be the only necessity
A sudden flush rose under M Rivieres sallow skin I—I thought it your metropolis is not the intellectual life more active there he rejoined then as if fearing to give his hearer the impression of having asked a favour he went on hastily One throws out random suggestions—more to ones self than to others In reality I see no immediate prospect— and rising from his seat he added without a trace of constraint But Mrs Carfry will think that I ought to be taking you upstairs
During the homeward drive Archer pondered deeply on this episode His hour with M Riviere had put new air into his lungs and his first impulse had been to invite him to dine the next day but he was beginning to understand why married men did not always immediately yield to their first impulses
That young tutor is an interesting fellow we had some awfully good talk after dinner about books and things he threw out tentatively in the hansom
May roused herself from one of the dreamy silences into which he had read so many meanings before six months of marriage had given him the key to them
The little Frenchman Wasnt he dreadfully common she questioned coldly and he guessed that she nursed a secret disappointment at having been invited out in London to meet a clergyman and a French tutor The disappointment was not occasioned by the sentiment ordinarily defined as snobbishness but by old New Yorks sense of what was due to it when it risked its dignity in foreign lands If Mays parents had entertained the Carfrys in Fifth Avenue they would have offered them something more substantial than a parson and a schoolmaster
But Archer was on edge and took her up
Common—common WHERE he queried and she returned with unusual readiness Why I should say anywhere but in his schoolroom Those people are always awkward in society But then she added disarmingly I suppose I shouldnt have known if he was clever
Archer disliked her use of the word clever almost as much as her use of the word common but he was beginning to fear his tendency to dwell on the things he disliked in her After all her point of view had always been the same It was that of all the people he had grown up among and he had always regarded it as necessary but negligible Until a few months ago he had never known a nice woman who looked at life differently and if a man married it must necessarily be among the nice
Ah—then I wont ask him to dine he concluded with a laugh and May echoed bewildered Goodness—ask the Carfrys tutor
Well not on the same day with the Carfrys if you prefer I shouldnt But I did rather want another talk with him Hes looking for a job in New York
Her surprise increased with her indifference he almost fancied that she suspected him of being tainted with foreignness
A job in New York What sort of a job People dont have French tutors what does he want to do
Chiefly to enjoy good conversation I understand her husband retorted perversely and she broke into an appreciative laugh Oh Newland how funny Isnt that FRENCH
On the whole he was glad to have the matter settled for him by her refusing to take seriously his wish to invite M Riviere Another afterdinner talk would have made it difficult to avoid the question of New York and the more Archer considered it the less he was able to fit M Riviere into any conceivable picture of New York as he knew it
He perceived with a flash of chilling insight that in future many problems would be thus negatively solved for him but as he paid the hansom and followed his wifes long train into the house he took refuge in the comforting platitude that the first six months were always the most difficult in marriage After that I suppose we shall have pretty nearly finished rubbing off each others angles he reflected but the worst of it was that Mays pressure was already bearing on the very angles whose sharpness he most wanted to keep
XXI
The small bright lawn stretched away smoothly to the big bright sea
The turf was hemmed with an edge of scarlet geranium and coleus and castiron vases painted in chocolate colour standing at intervals along the winding path that led to the sea looped their garlands of petunia and ivy geranium above the neatly raked gravel
Half way between the edge of the cliff and the square wooden house which was also chocolatecoloured but with the tin roof of the verandah striped in yellow and brown to represent an awning two large targets had been placed against a background of shrubbery On the other side of the lawn facing the targets was pitched a real tent with benches and gardenseats about it A number of ladies in summer dresses and gentlemen in grey frockcoats and tall hats stood on the lawn or sat upon the benches and every now and then a slender girl in starched muslin would step from the tent bow in hand and speed her shaft at one of the targets while the spectators interrupted their talk to watch the result
Newland Archer standing on the verandah of the house looked curiously down upon this scene On each side of the shiny painted steps was a large blue china flowerpot on a bright yellow china stand A spiky green plant filled each pot and below the verandah ran a wide border of blue hydrangeas edged with more red geraniums Behind him the French windows of the drawingrooms through which he had passed gave glimpses between swaying lace curtains of glassy parquet floors islanded with chintz poufs dwarf armchairs and velvet tables covered with trifles in silver
The Newport Archery Club always held its August meeting at the Beauforts The sport which had hitherto known no rival but croquet was beginning to be discarded in favour of lawntennis but the latter game was still considered too rough and inelegant for social occasions and as an opportunity to show off pretty dresses and graceful attitudes the bow and arrow held their own
Archer looked down with wonder at the familiar spectacle It surprised him that life should be going on in the old way when his own reactions to it had so completely changed It was Newport that had first brought home to him the extent of the change In New York during the previous winter after he and May had settled down in the new greenishyellow house with the bowwindow and the Pompeian vestibule he had dropped back with relief into the old routine of the office and the renewal of this daily activity had served as a link with his former self Then there had been the pleasurable excitement of choosing a showy grey stepper for Mays brougham the Wellands had given the carriage and the abiding occupation and interest of arranging his new library which in spite of family doubts and disapprovals had been carried out as he had dreamed with a dark embossed paper Eastlake bookcases and sincere armchairs and tables At the Century he had found Winsett again and at the Knickerbocker the fashionable young men of his own set and what with the hours dedicated to the law and those given to dining out or entertaining friends at home with an occasional evening at the Opera or the play the life he was living had still seemed a fairly real and inevitable sort of business
But Newport represented the escape from duty into an atmosphere of unmitigated holidaymaking Archer had tried to persuade May to spend the summer on a remote island off the coast of Maine called appropriately enough Mount Desert where a few hardy Bostonians and Philadelphians were camping in native cottages and whence came reports of enchanting scenery and a wild almost trapperlike existence amid woods and waters
But the Wellands always went to Newport where they owned one of the square boxes on the cliffs and their soninlaw could adduce no good reason why he and May should not join them there As Mrs Welland rather tartly pointed out it was hardly worth while for May to have worn herself out trying on summer clothes in Paris if she was not to be allowed to wear them and this argument was of a kind to which Archer had as yet found no answer
May herself could not understand his obscure reluctance to fall in with so reasonable and pleasant a way of spending the summer She reminded him that he had always liked Newport in his bachelor days and as this was indisputable he could only profess that he was sure he was going to like it better than ever now that they were to be there together But as he stood on the Beaufort verandah and looked out on the brightly peopled lawn it came home to him with a shiver that he was not going to like it at all
It was not Mays fault poor dear If now and then during their travels they had fallen slightly out of step harmony had been restored by their return to the conditions she was used to He had always foreseen that she would not disappoint him and he had been right He had married as most young men did because he had met a perfectly charming girl at the moment when a series of rather aimless sentimental adventures were ending in premature disgust and she had represented peace stability comradeship and the steadying sense of an unescapable duty
He could not say that he had been mistaken in his choice for she had fulfilled all that he had expected It was undoubtedly gratifying to be the husband of one of the handsomest and most popular young married women in New York especially when she was also one of the sweetesttempered and most reasonable of wives and Archer had never been insensible to such advantages As for the momentary madness which had fallen upon him on the eve of his marriage he had trained himself to regard it as the last of his discarded experiments The idea that he could ever in his senses have dreamed of marrying the Countess Olenska had become almost unthinkable and she remained in his memory simply as the most plaintive and poignant of a line of ghosts
But all these abstractions and eliminations made of his mind a rather empty and echoing place and he supposed that was one of the reasons why the busy animated people on the Beaufort lawn shocked him as if they had been children playing in a graveyard
He heard a murmur of skirts beside him and the Marchioness Manson fluttered out of the drawingroom window As usual she was extraordinarily festooned and bedizened with a limp Leghorn hat anchored to her head by many windings of faded gauze and a little black velvet parasol on a carved ivory handle absurdly balanced over her much larger hatbrim
My dear Newland I had no idea that you and May had arrived You yourself came only yesterday you say Ah business—business—professional duties I understand Many husbands I know find it impossible to join their wives here except for the weekend She cocked her head on one side and languished at him through screwedup eyes But marriage is one long sacrifice as I used often to remind my Ellen—
Archers heart stopped with the queer jerk which it had given once before and which seemed suddenly to slam a door between himself and the outer world but this break of continuity must have been of the briefest for he presently heard Medora answering a question he had apparently found voice to put
No I am not staying here but with the Blenkers in their delicious solitude at Portsmouth Beaufort was kind enough to send his famous trotters for me this morning so that I might have at least a glimpse of one of Reginas gardenparties but this evening I go back to rural life The Blenkers dear original beings have hired a primitive old farmhouse at Portsmouth where they gather about them representative people She drooped slightly beneath her protecting brim and added with a faint blush This week Dr Agathon Carver is holding a series of Inner Thought meetings there A contrast indeed to this gay scene of worldly pleasure—but then I have always lived on contrasts To me the only death is monotony I always say to Ellen Beware of monotony its the mother of all the deadly sins But my poor child is going through a phase of exaltation of abhorrence of the world You know I suppose that she has declined all invitations to stay at Newport even with her grandmother Mingott I could hardly persuade her to come with me to the Blenkers if you will believe it The life she leads is morbid unnatural Ah if she had only listened to me when it was still possible When the door was still open But shall we go down and watch this absorbing match I hear your May is one of the competitors
Strolling toward them from the tent Beaufort advanced over the lawn tall heavy too tightly buttoned into a London frockcoat with one of his own orchids in its buttonhole Archer who had not seen him for two or three months was struck by the change in his appearance In the hot summer light his floridness seemed heavy and bloated and but for his erect squareshouldered walk he would have looked like an overfed and overdressed old man
There were all sorts of rumours afloat about Beaufort In the spring he had gone off on a long cruise to the West Indies in his new steamyacht and it was reported that at various points where he had touched a lady resembling Miss Fanny Ring had been seen in his company The steamyacht built in the Clyde and fitted with tiled bathrooms and other unheardof luxuries was said to have cost him half a million and the pearl necklace which he had presented to his wife on his return was as magnificent as such expiatory offerings are apt to be Beauforts fortune was substantial enough to stand the strain and yet the disquieting rumours persisted not only in Fifth Avenue but in Wall Street Some people said he had speculated unfortunately in railways others that he was being bled by one of the most insatiable members of her profession and to every report of threatened insolvency Beaufort replied by a fresh extravagance the building of a new row of orchidhouses the purchase of a new string of racehorses or the addition of a new Meissonnier or Cabanel to his picturegallery
He advanced toward the Marchioness and Newland with his usual halfsneering smile Hullo Medora Did the trotters do their business Forty minutes eh Well thats not so bad considering your nerves had to be spared He shook hands with Archer and then turning back with them placed himself on Mrs Mansons other side and said in a low voice a few words which their companion did not catch
The Marchioness replied by one of her queer foreign jerks and a Que voulezvous which deepened Beauforts frown but he produced a good semblance of a congratulatory smile as he glanced at Archer to say You know Mays going to carry off the first prize
Ah then it remains in the family Medora rippled and at that moment they reached the tent and Mrs Beaufort met them in a girlish cloud of mauve muslin and floating veils
May Welland was just coming out of the tent In her white dress with a pale green ribbon about the waist and a wreath of ivy on her hat she had the same Dianalike aloofness as when she had entered the Beaufort ballroom on the night of her engagement In the interval not a thought seemed to have passed behind her eyes or a feeling through her heart and though her husband knew that she had the capacity for both he marvelled afresh at the way in which experience dropped away from her
She had her bow and arrow in her hand and placing herself on the chalkmark traced on the turf she lifted the bow to her shoulder and took aim The attitude was so full of a classic grace that a murmur of appreciation followed her appearance and Archer felt the glow of proprietorship that so often cheated him into momentary wellbeing Her rivals—Mrs Reggie Chivers the Merry girls and divers rosy Thorleys Dagonets and Mingotts stood behind her in a lovely anxious group brown heads and golden bent above the scores and pale muslins and flowerwreathed hats mingled in a tender rainbow All were young and pretty and bathed in summer bloom but not one had the nymphlike ease of his wife when with tense muscles and happy frown she bent her soul upon some feat of strength
Gad Archer heard Lawrence Lefferts say not one of the lot holds the bow as she does and Beaufort retorted Yes but thats the only kind of target shell ever hit
Archer felt irrationally angry His hosts contemptuous tribute to Mays niceness was just what a husband should have wished to hear said of his wife The fact that a coarseminded man found her lacking in attraction was simply another proof of her quality yet the words sent a faint shiver through his heart What if niceness carried to that supreme degree were only a negation the curtain dropped before an emptiness As he looked at May returning flushed and calm from her final bullseye he had the feeling that he had never yet lifted that curtain
She took the congratulations of her rivals and of the rest of the company with the simplicity that was her crowning grace No one could ever be jealous of her triumphs because she managed to give the feeling that she would have been just as serene if she had missed them But when her eyes met her husbands her face glowed with the pleasure she saw in his
Mrs Wellands basketwork ponycarriage was waiting for them and they drove off among the dispersing carriages May handling the reins and Archer sitting at her side
The afternoon sunlight still lingered upon the bright lawns and shrubberies and up and down Bellevue Avenue rolled a double line of victorias dogcarts landaus and visavis carrying welldressed ladies and gentlemen away from the Beaufort gardenparty or homeward from their daily afternoon turn along the Ocean Drive
Shall we go to see Granny May suddenly proposed I should like to tell her myself that Ive won the prize Theres lots of time before dinner
Archer acquiesced and she turned the ponies down Narragansett Avenue crossed Spring Street and drove out toward the rocky moorland beyond In this unfashionable region Catherine the Great always indifferent to precedent and thrifty of purse had built herself in her youth a manypeaked and crossbeamed cottageorne on a bit of cheap land overlooking the bay Here in a thicket of stunted oaks her verandahs spread themselves above the islanddotted waters A winding drive led up between iron stags and blue glass balls embedded in mounds of geraniums to a front door of highlyvarnished walnut under a striped verandahroof and behind it ran a narrow hall with a black and yellow starpatterned parquet floor upon which opened four small square rooms with heavy flockpapers under ceilings on which an Italian housepainter had lavished all the divinities of Olympus One of these rooms had been turned into a bedroom by Mrs Mingott when the burden of flesh descended on her and in the adjoining one she spent her days enthroned in a large armchair between the open door and window and perpetually waving a palmleaf fan which the prodigious projection of her bosom kept so far from the rest of her person that the air it set in motion stirred only the fringe of the antimacassars on the chairarms
Since she had been the means of hastening his marriage old Catherine had shown to Archer the cordiality which a service rendered excites toward the person served She was persuaded that irrepressible passion was the cause of his impatience and being an ardent admirer of impulsiveness when it did not lead to the spending of money she always received him with a genial twinkle of complicity and a play of allusion to which May seemed fortunately impervious
She examined and appraised with much interest the diamondtipped arrow which had been pinned on Mays bosom at the conclusion of the match remarking that in her day a filigree brooch would have been thought enough but that there was no denying that Beaufort did things handsomely
Quite an heirloom in fact my dear the old lady chuckled You must leave it in fee to your eldest girl She pinched Mays white arm and watched the colour flood her face Well well what have I said to make you shake out the red flag Aint there going to be any daughters—only boys eh Good gracious look at her blushing again all over her blushes What—cant I say that either Mercy me—when my children beg me to have all those gods and goddesses painted out overhead I always say Im too thankful to have somebody about me that NOTHING can shock
Archer burst into a laugh and May echoed it crimson to the eyes
Well now tell me all about the party please my dears for I shall never get a straight word about it out of that silly Medora the ancestress continued and as May exclaimed Cousin Medora But I thought she was going back to Portsmouth she answered placidly So she is—but shes got to come here first to pick up Ellen Ah—you didnt know Ellen had come to spend the day with me Such folderol her not coming for the summer but I gave up arguing with young people about fifty years ago Ellen—ELLEN she cried in her shrill old voice trying to bend forward far enough to catch a glimpse of the lawn beyond the verandah
There was no answer and Mrs Mingott rapped impatiently with her stick on the shiny floor A mulatto maidservant in a bright turban replying to the summons informed her mistress that she had seen Miss Ellen going down the path to the shore and Mrs Mingott turned to Archer
Run down and fetch her like a good grandson this pretty lady will describe the party to me she said and Archer stood up as if in a dream
He had heard the Countess Olenskas name pronounced often enough during the year and a half since they had last met and was even familiar with the main incidents of her life in the interval He knew that she had spent the previous summer at Newport where she appeared to have gone a great deal into society but that in the autumn she had suddenly sublet the perfect house which Beaufort had been at such pains to find for her and decided to establish herself in Washington There during the winter he had heard of her as one always heard of pretty women in Washington as shining in the brilliant diplomatic society that was supposed to make up for the social shortcomings of the Administration He had listened to these accounts and to various contradictory reports on her appearance her conversation her point of view and her choice of friends with the detachment with which one listens to reminiscences of some one long since dead not till Medora suddenly spoke her name at the archery match had Ellen Olenska become a living presence to him again The Marchionesss foolish lisp had called up a vision of the little firelit drawingroom and the sound of the carriagewheels returning down the deserted street He thought of a story he had read of some peasant children in Tuscany lighting a bunch of straw in a wayside cavern and revealing old silent images in their painted tomb
The way to the shore descended from the bank on which the house was perched to a walk above the water planted with weeping willows Through their veil Archer caught the glint of the Lime Rock with its whitewashed turret and the tiny house in which the heroic lighthouse keeper Ida Lewis was living her last venerable years Beyond it lay the flat reaches and ugly government chimneys of Goat Island the bay spreading northward in a shimmer of gold to Prudence Island with its low growth of oaks and the shores of Conanicut faint in the sunset haze
From the willow walk projected a slight wooden pier ending in a sort of pagodalike summerhouse and in the pagoda a lady stood leaning against the rail her back to the shore Archer stopped at the sight as if he had waked from sleep That vision of the past was a dream and the reality was what awaited him in the house on the bank overhead was Mrs Wellands ponycarriage circling around and around the oval at the door was May sitting under the shameless Olympians and glowing with secret hopes was the Welland villa at the far end of Bellevue Avenue and Mr Welland already dressed for dinner and pacing the drawingroom floor watch in hand with dyspeptic impatience—for it was one of the houses in which one always knew exactly what is happening at a given hour
What am I A soninlaw— Archer thought
The figure at the end of the pier had not moved For a long moment the young man stood half way down the bank gazing at the bay furrowed with the coming and going of sailboats yachtlaunches fishingcraft and the trailing black coalbarges hauled by noisy tugs The lady in the summerhouse seemed to be held by the same sight Beyond the grey bastions of Fort Adams a longdrawn sunset was splintering up into a thousand fires and the radiance caught the sail of a catboat as it beat out through the channel between the Lime Rock and the shore Archer as he watched remembered the scene in the Shaughraun and Montague lifting Ada Dyass ribbon to his lips without her knowing that he was in the room
She doesnt know—she hasnt guessed Shouldnt I know if she came up behind me I wonder he mused and suddenly he said to himself If she doesnt turn before that sail crosses the Lime Rock light Ill go back
The boat was gliding out on the receding tide It slid before the Lime Rock blotted out Ida Lewiss little house and passed across the turret in which the light was hung Archer waited till a wide space of water sparkled between the last reef of the island and the stern of the boat but still the figure in the summerhouse did not move
He turned and walked up the hill
Im sorry you didnt find Ellen—I should have liked to see her again May said as they drove home through the dusk But perhaps she wouldnt have cared—she seems so changed
Changed echoed her husband in a colourless voice his eyes fixed on the ponies twitching ears
So indifferent to her friends I mean giving up New York and her house and spending her time with such queer people Fancy how hideously uncomfortable she must be at the Blenkers She says she does it to keep cousin Medora out of mischief to prevent her marrying dreadful people But I sometimes think weve always bored her
Archer made no answer and she continued with a tinge of hardness that he had never before noticed in her frank fresh voice After all I wonder if she wouldnt be happier with her husband
He burst into a laugh Sancta simplicitas he exclaimed and as she turned a puzzled frown on him he added I dont think I ever heard you say a cruel thing before
Cruel
Well—watching the contortions of the damned is supposed to be a favourite sport of the angels but I believe even they dont think people happier in hell
Its a pity she ever married abroad then said May in the placid tone with which her mother met Mr Wellands vagaries and Archer felt himself gently relegated to the category of unreasonable husbands
They drove down Bellevue Avenue and turned in between the chamfered wooden gateposts surmounted by castiron lamps which marked the approach to the Welland villa Lights were already shining through its windows and Archer as the carriage stopped caught a glimpse of his fatherinlaw exactly as he had pictured him pacing the drawingroom watch in hand and wearing the pained expression that he had long since found to be much more efficacious than anger
The young man as he followed his wife into the hall was conscious of a curious reversal of mood There was something about the luxury of the Welland house and the density of the Welland atmosphere so charged with minute observances and exactions that always stole into his system like a narcotic The heavy carpets the watchful servants the perpetually reminding tick of disciplined clocks the perpetually renewed stack of cards and invitations on the hall table the whole chain of tyrannical trifles binding one hour to the next and each member of the household to all the others made any less systematised and affluent existence seem unreal and precarious But now it was the Welland house and the life he was expected to lead in it that had become unreal and irrelevant and the brief scene on the shore when he had stood irresolute halfway down the bank was as close to him as the blood in his veins
All night he lay awake in the big chintz bedroom at Mays side watching the moonlight slant along the carpet and thinking of Ellen Olenska driving home across the gleaming beaches behind Beauforts trotters
XXII
A party for the Blenkers—the Blenkers
Mr Welland laid down his knife and fork and looked anxiously and incredulously across the luncheontable at his wife who adjusting her gold eyeglasses read aloud in the tone of high comedy
Professor and Mrs Emerson Sillerton request the pleasure of Mr and Mrs Wellands company at the meeting of the Wednesday Afternoon Club on August 25th at 3 oclock punctually To meet Mrs and the Misses Blenker
Red Gables Catherine Street R S V P
Good gracious— Mr Welland gasped as if a second reading had been necessary to bring the monstrous absurdity of the thing home to him
Poor Amy Sillerton—you never can tell what her husband will do next Mrs Welland sighed I suppose hes just discovered the Blenkers
Professor Emerson Sillerton was a thorn in the side of Newport society and a thorn that could not be plucked out for it grew on a venerable and venerated family tree He was as people said a man who had had every advantage His father was Sillerton Jacksons uncle his mother a Pennilow of Boston on each side there was wealth and position and mutual suitability Nothing—as Mrs Welland had often remarked—nothing on earth obliged Emerson Sillerton to be an archaeologist or indeed a Professor of any sort or to live in Newport in winter or do any of the other revolutionary things that he did But at least if he was going to break with tradition and flout society in the face he need not have married poor Amy Dagonet who had a right to expect something different and money enough to keep her own carriage
No one in the Mingott set could understand why Amy Sillerton had submitted so tamely to the eccentricities of a husband who filled the house with longhaired men and shorthaired women and when he travelled took her to explore tombs in Yucatan instead of going to Paris or Italy But there they were set in their ways and apparently unaware that they were different from other people and when they gave one of their dreary annual gardenparties every family on the Cliffs because of the SillertonPennilowDagonet connection had to draw lots and send an unwilling representative
Its a wonder Mrs Welland remarked that they didnt choose the Cup Race day Do you remember two years ago their giving a party for a black man on the day of Julia Mingotts the dansant Luckily this time theres nothing else going on that I know of—for of course some of us will have to go
Mr Welland sighed nervously Some of us my dear—more than one Three oclock is such a very awkward hour I have to be here at halfpast three to take my drops its really no use trying to follow Bencombs new treatment if I dont do it systematically and if I join you later of course I shall miss my drive At the thought he laid down his knife and fork again and a flush of anxiety rose to his finelywrinkled cheek
Theres no reason why you should go at all my dear his wife answered with a cheerfulness that had become automatic I have some cards to leave at the other end of Bellevue Avenue and Ill drop in at about halfpast three and stay long enough to make poor Amy feel that she hasnt been slighted She glanced hesitatingly at her daughter And if Newlands afternoon is provided for perhaps May can drive you out with the ponies and try their new russet harness
It was a principle in the Welland family that peoples days and hours should be what Mrs Welland called provided for The melancholy possibility of having to kill time especially for those who did not care for whist or solitaire was a vision that haunted her as the spectre of the unemployed haunts the philanthropist Another of her principles was that parents should never at least visibly interfere with the plans of their married children and the difficulty of adjusting this respect for Mays independence with the exigency of Mr Wellands claims could be overcome only by the exercise of an ingenuity which left not a second of Mrs Wellands own time unprovided for
Of course Ill drive with Papa—Im sure Newland will find something to do May said in a tone that gently reminded her husband of his lack of response It was a cause of constant distress to Mrs Welland that her soninlaw showed so little foresight in planning his days Often already during the fortnight that he had passed under her roof when she enquired how he meant to spend his afternoon he had answered paradoxically Oh I think for a change Ill just save it instead of spending it— and once when she and May had had to go on a longpostponed round of afternoon calls he had confessed to having lain all the afternoon under a rock on the beach below the house
Newland never seems to look ahead Mrs Welland once ventured to complain to her daughter and May answered serenely No but you see it doesnt matter because when theres nothing particular to do he reads a book
Ah yes—like his father Mrs Welland agreed as if allowing for an inherited oddity and after that the question of Newlands unemployment was tacitly dropped
Nevertheless as the day for the Sillerton reception approached May began to show a natural solicitude for his welfare and to suggest a tennis match at the Chiverses or a sail on Julius Beauforts cutter as a means of atoning for her temporary desertion I shall be back by six you know dear Papa never drives later than that— and she was not reassured till Archer said that he thought of hiring a runabout and driving up the island to a studfarm to look at a second horse for her brougham They had been looking for this horse for some time and the suggestion was so acceptable that May glanced at her mother as if to say You see he knows how to plan out his time as well as any of us
The idea of the studfarm and the brougham horse had germinated in Archers mind on the very day when the Emerson Sillerton invitation had first been mentioned but he had kept it to himself as if there were something clandestine in the plan and discovery might prevent its execution He had however taken the precaution to engage in advance a runabout with a pair of old liverystable trotters that could still do their eighteen miles on level roads and at two oclock hastily deserting the luncheontable he sprang into the light carriage and drove off
The day was perfect A breeze from the north drove little puffs of white cloud across an ultramarine sky with a bright sea running under it Bellevue Avenue was empty at that hour and after dropping the stablelad at the corner of Mill Street Archer turned down the Old Beach Road and drove across Eastmans Beach
He had the feeling of unexplained excitement with which on halfholidays at school he used to start off into the unknown Taking his pair at an easy gait he counted on reaching the studfarm which was not far beyond Paradise Rocks before three oclock so that after looking over the horse and trying him if he seemed promising he would still have four golden hours to dispose of
As soon as he heard of the Sillertons party he had said to himself that the Marchioness Manson would certainly come to Newport with the Blenkers and that Madame Olenska might again take the opportunity of spending the day with her grandmother At any rate the Blenker habitation would probably be deserted and he would be able without indiscretion to satisfy a vague curiosity concerning it He was not sure that he wanted to see the Countess Olenska again but ever since he had looked at her from the path above the bay he had wanted irrationally and indescribably to see the place she was living in and to follow the movements of her imagined figure as he had watched the real one in the summerhouse The longing was with him day and night an incessant undefinable craving like the sudden whim of a sick man for food or drink once tasted and long since forgotten He could not see beyond the craving or picture what it might lead to for he was not conscious of any wish to speak to Madame Olenska or to hear her voice He simply felt that if he could carry away the vision of the spot of earth she walked on and the way the sky and sea enclosed it the rest of the world might seem less empty
When he reached the studfarm a glance showed him that the horse was not what he wanted nevertheless he took a turn behind it in order to prove to himself that he was not in a hurry But at three oclock he shook out the reins over the trotters and turned into the byroads leading to Portsmouth The wind had dropped and a faint haze on the horizon showed that a fog was waiting to steal up the Saconnet on the turn of the tide but all about him fields and woods were steeped in golden light
He drove past greyshingled farmhouses in orchards past hayfields and groves of oak past villages with white steeples rising sharply into the fading sky and at last after stopping to ask the way of some men at work in a field he turned down a lane between high banks of goldenrod and brambles At the end of the lane was the blue glimmer of the river to the left standing in front of a clump of oaks and maples he saw a long tumbledown house with white paint peeling from its clapboards
On the roadside facing the gateway stood one of the open sheds in which the New Englander shelters his farming implements and visitors hitch their teams Archer jumping down led his pair into the shed and after tying them to a post turned toward the house The patch of lawn before it had relapsed into a hayfield but to the left an overgrown boxgarden full of dahlias and rusty rosebushes encircled a ghostly summerhouse of trelliswork that had once been white surmounted by a wooden Cupid who had lost his bow and arrow but continued to take ineffectual aim
Archer leaned for a while against the gate No one was in sight and not a sound came from the open windows of the house a grizzled Newfoundland dozing before the door seemed as ineffectual a guardian as the arrowless Cupid It was strange to think that this place of silence and decay was the home of the turbulent Blenkers yet Archer was sure that he was not mistaken
For a long time he stood there content to take in the scene and gradually falling under its drowsy spell but at length he roused himself to the sense of the passing time Should he look his fill and then drive away He stood irresolute wishing suddenly to see the inside of the house so that he might picture the room that Madame Olenska sat in There was nothing to prevent his walking up to the door and ringing the bell if as he supposed she was away with the rest of the party he could easily give his name and ask permission to go into the sittingroom to write a message
But instead he crossed the lawn and turned toward the boxgarden As he entered it he caught sight of something brightcoloured in the summerhouse and presently made it out to be a pink parasol The parasol drew him like a magnet he was sure it was hers He went into the summerhouse and sitting down on the rickety seat picked up the silken thing and looked at its carved handle which was made of some rare wood that gave out an aromatic scent Archer lifted the handle to his lips
He heard a rustle of skirts against the box and sat motionless leaning on the parasol handle with clasped hands and letting the rustle come nearer without lifting his eyes He had always known that this must happen
Oh Mr Archer exclaimed a loud young voice and looking up he saw before him the youngest and largest of the Blenker girls blonde and blowsy in bedraggled muslin A red blotch on one of her cheeks seemed to show that it had recently been pressed against a pillow and her halfawakened eyes stared at him hospitably but confusedly
Gracious—where did you drop from I must have been sound asleep in the hammock Everybody else has gone to Newport Did you ring she incoherently enquired
Archers confusion was greater than hers I—no—that is I was just going to I had to come up the island to see about a horse and I drove over on a chance of finding Mrs Blenker and your visitors But the house seemed empty—so I sat down to wait
Miss Blenker shaking off the fumes of sleep looked at him with increasing interest The house IS empty Mothers not here or the Marchioness—or anybody but me Her glance became faintly reproachful Didnt you know that Professor and Mrs Sillerton are giving a gardenparty for mother and all of us this afternoon It was too unlucky that I couldnt go but Ive had a sore throat and mother was afraid of the drive home this evening Did you ever know anything so disappointing Of course she added gaily I shouldnt have minded half as much if Id known you were coming
Symptoms of a lumbering coquetry became visible in her and Archer found the strength to break in But Madame Olenska—has she gone to Newport too
Miss Blenker looked at him with surprise Madame Olenska—didnt you know shed been called away
Called away—
Oh my best parasol I lent it to that goose of a Katie because it matched her ribbons and the careless thing must have dropped it here We Blenkers are all like that real Bohemians Recovering the sunshade with a powerful hand she unfurled it and suspended its rosy dome above her head Yes Ellen was called away yesterday she lets us call her Ellen you know A telegram came from Boston she said she might be gone for two days I do LOVE the way she does her hair dont you Miss Blenker rambled on
Archer continued to stare through her as though she had been transparent All he saw was the trumpery parasol that arched its pinkness above her giggling head
After a moment he ventured You dont happen to know why Madame Olenska went to Boston I hope it was not on account of bad news
Miss Blenker took this with a cheerful incredulity Oh I dont believe so She didnt tell us what was in the telegram I think she didnt want the Marchioness to know Shes so romanticlooking isnt she Doesnt she remind you of Mrs ScottSiddons when she reads Lady Geraldines Courtship Did you never hear her
Archer was dealing hurriedly with crowding thoughts His whole future seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him and passing down its endless emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of a man to whom nothing was ever to happen He glanced about him at the unpruned garden the tumbledown house and the oakgrove under which the dusk was gathering It had seemed so exactly the place in which he ought to have found Madame Olenska and she was far away and even the pink sunshade was not hers
He frowned and hesitated You dont know I suppose—I shall be in Boston tomorrow If I could manage to see her—
He felt that Miss Blenker was losing interest in him though her smile persisted Oh of course how lovely of you Shes staying at the Parker House it must be horrible there in this weather
After that Archer was but intermittently aware of the remarks they exchanged He could only remember stoutly resisting her entreaty that he should await the returning family and have high tea with them before he drove home At length with his hostess still at his side he passed out of range of the wooden Cupid unfastened his horses and drove off At the turn of the lane he saw Miss Blenker standing at the gate and waving the pink parasol
XXIII
The next morning when Archer got out of the Fall River train he emerged upon a steaming midsummer Boston The streets near the station were full of the smell of beer and coffee and decaying fruit and a shirtsleeved populace moved through them with the intimate abandon of boarders going down the passage to the bathroom
Archer found a cab and drove to the Somerset Club for breakfast Even the fashionable quarters had the air of untidy domesticity to which no excess of heat ever degrades the European cities Caretakers in calico lounged on the doorsteps of the wealthy and the Common looked like a pleasureground on the morrow of a Masonic picnic If Archer had tried to imagine Ellen Olenska in improbable scenes he could not have called up any into which it was more difficult to fit her than this heatprostrated and deserted Boston
He breakfasted with appetite and method beginning with a slice of melon and studying a morning paper while he waited for his toast and scrambled eggs A new sense of energy and activity had possessed him ever since he had announced to May the night before that he had business in Boston and should take the Fall River boat that night and go on to New York the following evening It had always been understood that he would return to town early in the week and when he got back from his expedition to Portsmouth a letter from the office which fate had conspicuously placed on a corner of the hall table sufficed to justify his sudden change of plan He was even ashamed of the ease with which the whole thing had been done it reminded him for an uncomfortable moment of Lawrence Leffertss masterly contrivances for securing his freedom But this did not long trouble him for he was not in an analytic mood
After breakfast he smoked a cigarette and glanced over the Commercial Advertiser While he was thus engaged two or three men he knew came in and the usual greetings were exchanged it was the same world after all though he had such a queer sense of having slipped through the meshes of time and space
He looked at his watch and finding that it was halfpast nine got up and went into the writingroom There he wrote a few lines and ordered a messenger to take a cab to the Parker House and wait for the answer He then sat down behind another newspaper and tried to calculate how long it would take a cab to get to the Parker House
The lady was out sir he suddenly heard a waiters voice at his elbow and he stammered Out— as if it were a word in a strange language
He got up and went into the hall It must be a mistake she could not be out at that hour He flushed with anger at his own stupidity why had he not sent the note as soon as he arrived
He found his hat and stick and went forth into the street The city had suddenly become as strange and vast and empty as if he were a traveller from distant lands For a moment he stood on the doorstep hesitating then he decided to go to the Parker House What if the messenger had been misinformed and she were still there
He started to walk across the Common and on the first bench under a tree he saw her sitting She had a grey silk sunshade over her head—how could he ever have imagined her with a pink one As he approached he was struck by her listless attitude she sat there as if she had nothing else to do He saw her drooping profile and the knot of hair fastened low in the neck under her dark hat and the long wrinkled glove on the hand that held the sunshade He came a step or two nearer and she turned and looked at him
Oh—she said and for the first time he noticed a startled look on her face but in another moment it gave way to a slow smile of wonder and contentment
Oh—she murmured again on a different note as he stood looking down at her and without rising she made a place for him on the bench
Im here on business—just got here Archer explained and without knowing why he suddenly began to feign astonishment at seeing her But what on earth are you doing in this wilderness He had really no idea what he was saying he felt as if he were shouting at her across endless distances and she might vanish again before he could overtake her
I Oh Im here on business too she answered turning her head toward him so that they were face to face The words hardly reached him he was aware only of her voice and of the startling fact that not an echo of it had remained in his memory He had not even remembered that it was lowpitched with a faint roughness on the consonants
You do your hair differently he said his heart beating as if he had uttered something irrevocable
Differently No—its only that I do it as best I can when Im without Nastasia
Nastasia but isnt she with you
No Im alone For two days it was not worth while to bring her
Youre alone—at the Parker House
She looked at him with a flash of her old malice Does it strike you as dangerous
No not dangerous—
But unconventional I see I suppose it is She considered a moment I hadnt thought of it because Ive just done something so much more unconventional The faint tinge of irony lingered in her eyes Ive just refused to take back a sum of money—that belonged to me
Archer sprang up and moved a step or two away She had furled her parasol and sat absently drawing patterns on the gravel Presently he came back and stood before her
Some one—has come here to meet you
Yes
With this offer
She nodded
And you refused—because of the conditions
I refused she said after a moment
He sat down by her again What were the conditions
Oh they were not onerous just to sit at the head of his table now and then
There was another interval of silence Archers heart had slammed itself shut in the queer way it had and he sat vainly groping for a word
He wants you back—at any price
Well—a considerable price At least the sum is considerable for me
He paused again beating about the question he felt he must put
It was to meet him here that you came
She stared and then burst into a laugh Meet him—my husband HERE At this season hes always at Cowes or Baden
He sent some one
Yes
With a letter
She shook her head No just a message He never writes I dont think Ive had more than one letter from him The allusion brought the colour to her cheek and it reflected itself in Archers vivid blush
Why does he never write
Why should he What does one have secretaries for
The young mans blush deepened She had pronounced the word as if it had no more significance than any other in her vocabulary For a moment it was on the tip of his tongue to ask Did he send his secretary then But the remembrance of Count Olenskis only letter to his wife was too present to him He paused again and then took another plunge
And the person—
The emissary The emissary Madame Olenska rejoined still smiling might for all I care have left already but he has insisted on waiting till this evening in case on the chance
And you came out here to think the chance over
I came out to get a breath of air The hotels too stifling Im taking the afternoon train back to Portsmouth
They sat silent not looking at each other but straight ahead at the people passing along the path Finally she turned her eyes again to his face and said Youre not changed
He felt like answering I was till I saw you again but instead he stood up abruptly and glanced about him at the untidy sweltering park
This is horrible Why shouldnt we go out a little on the bay Theres a breeze and it will be cooler We might take the steamboat down to Point Arley She glanced up at him hesitatingly and he went on On a Monday morning there wont be anybody on the boat My train doesnt leave till evening Im going back to New York Why shouldnt we he insisted looking down at her and suddenly he broke out Havent we done all we could
Oh—she murmured again She stood up and reopened her sunshade glancing about her as if to take counsel of the scene and assure herself of the impossibility of remaining in it Then her eyes returned to his face You mustnt say things like that to me she said
Ill say anything you like or nothing I wont open my mouth unless you tell me to What harm can it do to anybody All I want is to listen to you he stammered
She drew out a little goldfaced watch on an enamelled chain Oh dont calculate he broke out give me the day I want to get you away from that man At what time was he coming
Her colour rose again At eleven
Then you must come at once
You neednt be afraid—if I dont come
Nor you either—if you do I swear I only want to hear about you to know what youve been doing Its a hundred years since weve met—it may be another hundred before we meet again
She still wavered her anxious eyes on his face Why didnt you come down to the beach to fetch me the day I was at Grannys she asked
Because you didnt look round—because you didnt know I was there I swore I wouldnt unless you looked round He laughed as the childishness of the confession struck him
But I didnt look round on purpose
On purpose
I knew you were there when you drove in I recognised the ponies So I went down to the beach
To get away from me as far as you could
She repeated in a low voice To get away from you as far as I could
He laughed out again this time in boyish satisfaction Well you see its no use I may as well tell you he added that the business I came here for was just to find you But look here we must start or we shall miss our boat
Our boat She frowned perplexedly and then smiled Oh but I must go back to the hotel first I must leave a note—
As many notes as you please You can write here He drew out a notecase and one of the new stylographic pens Ive even got an envelope—you see how everythings predestined There—steady the thing on your knee and Ill get the pen going in a second They have to be humoured wait— He banged the hand that held the pen against the back of the bench Its like jerking down the mercury in a thermometer just a trick Now try—
She laughed and bending over the sheet of paper which he had laid on his notecase began to write Archer walked away a few steps staring with radiant unseeing eyes at the passersby who in their turn paused to stare at the unwonted sight of a fashionablydressed lady writing a note on her knee on a bench in the Common
Madame Olenska slipped the sheet into the envelope wrote a name on it and put it into her pocket Then she too stood up
They walked back toward Beacon Street and near the club Archer caught sight of the plushlined herdic which had carried his note to the Parker House and whose driver was reposing from this effort by bathing his brow at the corner hydrant
I told you everything was predestined Heres a cab for us You see They laughed astonished at the miracle of picking up a public conveyance at that hour and in that unlikely spot in a city where cabstands were still a foreign novelty
Archer looking at his watch saw that there was time to drive to the Parker House before going to the steamboat landing They rattled through the hot streets and drew up at the door of the hotel
Archer held out his hand for the letter Shall I take it in he asked but Madame Olenska shaking her head sprang out and disappeared through the glazed doors It was barely halfpast ten but what if the emissary impatient for her reply and not knowing how else to employ his time were already seated among the travellers with cooling drinks at their elbows of whom Archer had caught a glimpse as she went in
He waited pacing up and down before the herdic A Sicilian youth with eyes like Nastasias offered to shine his boots and an Irish matron to sell him peaches and every few moments the doors opened to let out hot men with straw hats tilted far back who glanced at him as they went by He marvelled that the door should open so often and that all the people it let out should look so like each other and so like all the other hot men who at that hour through the length and breadth of the land were passing continuously in and out of the swinging doors of hotels
And then suddenly came a face that he could not relate to the other faces He caught but a flash of it for his pacings had carried him to the farthest point of his beat and it was in turning back to the hotel that he saw in a group of typical countenances—the lank and weary the round and surprised the lanternjawed and mild—this other face that was so many more things at once and things so different It was that of a young man pale too and halfextinguished by the heat or worry or both but somehow quicker vivider more conscious or perhaps seeming so because he was so different Archer hung a moment on a thin thread of memory but it snapped and floated off with the disappearing face—apparently that of some foreign business man looking doubly foreign in such a setting He vanished in the stream of passersby and Archer resumed his patrol
He did not care to be seen watch in hand within view of the hotel and his unaided reckoning of the lapse of time led him to conclude that if Madame Olenska was so long in reappearing it could only be because she had met the emissary and been waylaid by him At the thought Archers apprehension rose to anguish
If she doesnt come soon Ill go in and find her he said
The doors swung open again and she was at his side They got into the herdic and as it drove off he took out his watch and saw that she had been absent just three minutes In the clatter of loose windows that made talk impossible they bumped over the disjointed cobblestones to the wharf
Seated side by side on a bench of the halfempty boat they found that they had hardly anything to say to each other or rather that what they had to say communicated itself best in the blessed silence of their release and their isolation
As the paddlewheels began to turn and wharves and shipping to recede through the veil of heat it seemed to Archer that everything in the old familiar world of habit was receding also He longed to ask Madame Olenska if she did not have the same feeling the feeling that they were starting on some long voyage from which they might never return But he was afraid to say it or anything else that might disturb the delicate balance of her trust in him In reality he had no wish to betray that trust There had been days and nights when the memory of their kiss had burned and burned on his lips the day before even on the drive to Portsmouth the thought of her had run through him like fire but now that she was beside him and they were drifting forth into this unknown world they seemed to have reached the kind of deeper nearness that a touch may sunder
As the boat left the harbour and turned seaward a breeze stirred about them and the bay broke up into long oily undulations then into ripples tipped with spray The fog of sultriness still hung over the city but ahead lay a fresh world of ruffled waters and distant promontories with lighthouses in the sun Madame Olenska leaning back against the boatrail drank in the coolness between parted lips She had wound a long veil about her hat but it left her face uncovered and Archer was struck by the tranquil gaiety of her expression She seemed to take their adventure as a matter of course and to be neither in fear of unexpected encounters nor what was worse unduly elated by their possibility
In the bare diningroom of the inn which he had hoped they would have to themselves they found a strident party of innocentlooking young men and women—schoolteachers on a holiday the landlord told them—and Archers heart sank at the idea of having to talk through their noise
This is hopeless—Ill ask for a private room he said and Madame Olenska without offering any objection waited while he went in search of it The room opened on a long wooden verandah with the sea coming in at the windows It was bare and cool with a table covered with a coarse checkered cloth and adorned by a bottle of pickles and a blueberry pie under a cage No more guilelesslooking cabinet particulier ever offered its shelter to a clandestine couple Archer fancied he saw the sense of its reassurance in the faintly amused smile with which Madame Olenska sat down opposite to him A woman who had run away from her husband—and reputedly with another man—was likely to have mastered the art of taking things for granted but something in the quality of her composure took the edge from his irony By being so quiet so unsurprised and so simple she had managed to brush away the conventions and make him feel that to seek to be alone was the natural thing for two old friends who had so much to say to each other
XXIV
They lunched slowly and meditatively with mute intervals between rushes of talk for the spell once broken they had much to say and yet moments when saying became the mere accompaniment to long duologues of silence Archer kept the talk from his own affairs not with conscious intention but because he did not want to miss a word of her history and leaning on the table her chin resting on her clasped hands she talked to him of the year and a half since they had met
She had grown tired of what people called society New York was kind it was almost oppressively hospitable she should never forget the way in which it had welcomed her back but after the first flush of novelty she had found herself as she phrased it too different to care for the things it cared about—and so she had decided to try Washington where one was supposed to meet more varieties of people and of opinion And on the whole she should probably settle down in Washington and make a home there for poor Medora who had worn out the patience of all her other relations just at the time when she most needed looking after and protecting from matrimonial perils
But Dr Carver—arent you afraid of Dr Carver I hear hes been staying with you at the Blenkers
She smiled Oh the Carver danger is over Dr Carver is a very clever man He wants a rich wife to finance his plans and Medora is simply a good advertisement as a convert
A convert to what
To all sorts of new and crazy social schemes But do you know they interest me more than the blind conformity to tradition—somebody elses tradition—that I see among our own friends It seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another country She smiled across the table Do you suppose Christopher Columbus would have taken all that trouble just to go to the Opera with the Selfridge Merrys
Archer changed colour And Beaufort—do you say these things to Beaufort he asked abruptly
I havent seen him for a long time But I used to and he understands
Ah its what Ive always told you you dont like us And you like Beaufort because hes so unlike us He looked about the bare room and out at the bare beach and the row of stark white village houses strung along the shore Were damnably dull Weve no character no colour no variety—I wonder he broke out why you dont go back
Her eyes darkened and he expected an indignant rejoinder But she sat silent as if thinking over what he had said and he grew frightened lest she should answer that she wondered too
At length she said I believe its because of you
It was impossible to make the confession more dispassionately or in a tone less encouraging to the vanity of the person addressed Archer reddened to the temples but dared not move or speak it was as if her words had been some rare butterfly that the least motion might drive off on startled wings but that might gather a flock about it if it were left undisturbed
At least she continued it was you who made me understand that under the dullness there are things so fine and sensitive and delicate that even those I most cared for in my other life look cheap in comparison I dont know how to explain myself—she drew together her troubled brows—but it seems as if Id never before understood with how much that is hard and shabby and base the most exquisite pleasures may be paid
Exquisite pleasures—its something to have had them he felt like retorting but the appeal in her eyes kept him silent
I want she went on to be perfectly honest with you—and with myself For a long time Ive hoped this chance would come that I might tell you how youve helped me what youve made of me—
Archer sat staring beneath frowning brows He interrupted her with a laugh And what do you make out that youve made of me
She paled a little Of you
Yes for Im of your making much more than you ever were of mine Im the man who married one woman because another one told him to
Her paleness turned to a fugitive flush I thought—you promised—you were not to say such things today
Ah—how like a woman None of you will ever see a bad business through
She lowered her voice IS it a bad business—for May
He stood in the window drumming against the raised sash and feeling in every fibre the wistful tenderness with which she had spoken her cousins name
For thats the thing weve always got to think of—havent we—by your own showing she insisted
My own showing he echoed his blank eyes still on the sea
Or if not she continued pursuing her own thought with a painful application if its not worth while to have given up to have missed things so that others may be saved from disillusionment and misery—then everything I came home for everything that made my other life seem by contrast so bare and so poor because no one there took account of them—all these things are a sham or a dream—
He turned around without moving from his place And in that case theres no reason on earth why you shouldnt go back he concluded for her
Her eyes were clinging to him desperately Oh IS there no reason
Not if you staked your all on the success of my marriage My marriage he said savagely isnt going to be a sight to keep you here She made no answer and he went on Whats the use You gave me my first glimpse of a real life and at the same moment you asked me to go on with a sham one Its beyond human enduring—thats all
Oh dont say that when Im enduring it she burst out her eyes filling
Her arms had dropped along the table and she sat with her face abandoned to his gaze as if in the recklessness of a desperate peril The face exposed her as much as if it had been her whole person with the soul behind it Archer stood dumb overwhelmed by what it suddenly told him
You too—oh all this time you too
For answer she let the tears on her lids overflow and run slowly downward
Half the width of the room was still between them and neither made any show of moving Archer was conscious of a curious indifference to her bodily presence he would hardly have been aware of it if one of the hands she had flung out on the table had not drawn his gaze as on the occasion when in the little Twentythird Street house he had kept his eye on it in order not to look at her face Now his imagination spun about the hand as about the edge of a vortex but still he made no effort to draw nearer He had known the love that is fed on caresses and feeds them but this passion that was closer than his bones was not to be superficially satisfied His one terror was to do anything which might efface the sound and impression of her words his one thought that he should never again feel quite alone
But after a moment the sense of waste and ruin overcame him There they were close together and safe and shut in yet so chained to their separate destinies that they might as well have been half the world apart
Whats the use—when you will go back he broke out a great hopeless HOW ON EARTH CAN I KEEP YOU crying out to her beneath his words
She sat motionless with lowered lids Oh—I shant go yet
Not yet Some time then Some time that you already foresee
At that she raised her clearest eyes I promise you not as long as you hold out Not as long as we can look straight at each other like this
He dropped into his chair What her answer really said was If you lift a finger youll drive me back back to all the abominations you know of and all the temptations you half guess He understood it as clearly as if she had uttered the words and the thought kept him anchored to his side of the table in a kind of moved and sacred submission
What a life for you— he groaned
Oh—as long as its a part of yours
And mine a part of yours
She nodded
And thats to be all—for either of us
Well it IS all isnt it
At that he sprang up forgetting everything but the sweetness of her face She rose too not as if to meet him or to flee from him but quietly as though the worst of the task were done and she had only to wait so quietly that as he came close her outstretched hands acted not as a check but as a guide to him They fell into his while her arms extended but not rigid kept him far enough off to let her surrendered face say the rest
They may have stood in that way for a long time or only for a few moments but it was long enough for her silence to communicate all she had to say and for him to feel that only one thing mattered He must do nothing to make this meeting their last he must leave their future in her care asking only that she should keep fast hold of it
Dont—dont be unhappy she said with a break in her voice as she drew her hands away and he answered You wont go back—you wont go back as if it were the one possibility he could not bear
I wont go back she said and turning away she opened the door and led the way into the public diningroom
The strident schoolteachers were gathering up their possessions preparatory to a straggling flight to the wharf across the beach lay the white steamboat at the pier and over the sunlit waters Boston loomed in a line of haze
XXV
Once more on the boat and in the presence of others Archer felt a tranquillity of spirit that surprised as much as it sustained him
The day according to any current valuation had been a rather ridiculous failure he had not so much as touched Madame Olenskas hand with his lips or extracted one word from her that gave promise of farther opportunities Nevertheless for a man sick with unsatisfied love and parting for an indefinite period from the object of his passion he felt himself almost humiliatingly calm and comforted It was the perfect balance she had held between their loyalty to others and their honesty to themselves that had so stirred and yet tranquillized him a balance not artfully calculated as her tears and her falterings showed but resulting naturally from her unabashed sincerity It filled him with a tender awe now the danger was over and made him thank the fates that no personal vanity no sense of playing a part before sophisticated witnesses had tempted him to tempt her Even after they had clasped hands for goodbye at the Fall River station and he had turned away alone the conviction remained with him of having saved out of their meeting much more than he had sacrificed
He wandered back to the club and went and sat alone in the deserted library turning and turning over in his thoughts every separate second of their hours together It was clear to him and it grew more clear under closer scrutiny that if she should finally decide on returning to Europe—returning to her husband—it would not be because her old life tempted her even on the new terms offered No she would go only if she felt herself becoming a temptation to Archer a temptation to fall away from the standard they had both set up Her choice would be to stay near him as long as he did not ask her to come nearer and it depended on himself to keep her just there safe but secluded
In the train these thoughts were still with him They enclosed him in a kind of golden haze through which the faces about him looked remote and indistinct he had a feeling that if he spoke to his fellowtravellers they would not understand what he was saying In this state of abstraction he found himself the following morning waking to the reality of a stifling September day in New York The heatwithered faces in the long train streamed past him and he continued to stare at them through the same golden blur but suddenly as he left the station one of the faces detached itself came closer and forced itself upon his consciousness It was as he instantly recalled the face of the young man he had seen the day before passing out of the Parker House and had noted as not conforming to type as not having an American hotel face
The same thing struck him now and again he became aware of a dim stir of former associations The young man stood looking about him with the dazed air of the foreigner flung upon the harsh mercies of American travel then he advanced toward Archer lifted his hat and said in English Surely Monsieur we met in London
Ah to be sure in London Archer grasped his hand with curiosity and sympathy So you DID get here after all he exclaimed casting a wondering eye on the astute and haggard little countenance of young Carfrys French tutor
Oh I got here—yes M Riviere smiled with drawn lips But not for long I return the day after tomorrow He stood grasping his light valise in one neatly gloved hand and gazing anxiously perplexedly almost appealingly into Archers face
I wonder Monsieur since Ive had the good luck to run across you if I might—
I was just going to suggest it come to luncheon wont you Down town I mean if youll look me up in my office Ill take you to a very decent restaurant in that quarter
M Riviere was visibly touched and surprised Youre too kind But I was only going to ask if you would tell me how to reach some sort of conveyance There are no porters and no one here seems to listen—
I know our American stations must surprise you When you ask for a porter they give you chewinggum But if youll come along Ill extricate you and you must really lunch with me you know
The young man after a just perceptible hesitation replied with profuse thanks and in a tone that did not carry complete conviction that he was already engaged but when they had reached the comparative reassurance of the street he asked if he might call that afternoon
Archer at ease in the midsummer leisure of the office fixed an hour and scribbled his address which the Frenchman pocketed with reiterated thanks and a wide flourish of his hat A horsecar received him and Archer walked away
Punctually at the hour M Riviere appeared shaved smoothedout but still unmistakably drawn and serious Archer was alone in his office and the young man before accepting the seat he proffered began abruptly I believe I saw you sir yesterday in Boston
The statement was insignificant enough and Archer was about to frame an assent when his words were checked by something mysterious yet illuminating in his visitors insistent gaze
It is extraordinary very extraordinary M Riviere continued that we should have met in the circumstances in which I find myself
What circumstances Archer asked wondering a little crudely if he needed money
M Riviere continued to study him with tentative eyes I have come not to look for employment as I spoke of doing when we last met but on a special mission—
Ah— Archer exclaimed In a flash the two meetings had connected themselves in his mind He paused to take in the situation thus suddenly lighted up for him and M Riviere also remained silent as if aware that what he had said was enough
A special mission Archer at length repeated
The young Frenchman opening his palms raised them slightly and the two men continued to look at each other across the officedesk till Archer roused himself to say Do sit down whereupon M Riviere bowed took a distant chair and again waited
It was about this mission that you wanted to consult me Archer finally asked
M Riviere bent his head Not in my own behalf on that score I—I have fully dealt with myself I should like—if I may—to speak to you about the Countess Olenska
Archer had known for the last few minutes that the words were coming but when they came they sent the blood rushing to his temples as if he had been caught by a bentback branch in a thicket
And on whose behalf he said do you wish to do this
M Riviere met the question sturdily Well—I might say HERS if it did not sound like a liberty Shall I say instead on behalf of abstract justice
Archer considered him ironically In other words you are Count Olenskis messenger
He saw his blush more darkly reflected in M Rivieres sallow countenance Not to YOU Monsieur If I come to you it is on quite other grounds
What right have you in the circumstances to BE on any other ground Archer retorted If youre an emissary youre an emissary
The young man considered My mission is over as far as the Countess Olenska goes it has failed
I cant help that Archer rejoined on the same note of irony
No but you can help— M Riviere paused turned his hat about in his still carefully gloved hands looked into its lining and then back at Archers face You can help Monsieur I am convinced to make it equally a failure with her family
Archer pushed back his chair and stood up Well—and by God I will he exclaimed He stood with his hands in his pockets staring down wrathfully at the little Frenchman whose face though he too had risen was still an inch or two below the line of Archers eyes
M Riviere paled to his normal hue paler than that his complexion could hardly turn
Why the devil Archer explosively continued should you have thought—since I suppose youre appealing to me on the ground of my relationship to Madame Olenska—that I should take a view contrary to the rest of her family
The change of expression in M Rivieres face was for a time his only answer His look passed from timidity to absolute distress for a young man of his usually resourceful mien it would have been difficult to appear more disarmed and defenceless Oh Monsieur—
I cant imagine Archer continued why you should have come to me when there are others so much nearer to the Countess still less why you thought I should be more accessible to the arguments I suppose you were sent over with
M Riviere took this onslaught with a disconcerting humility The arguments I want to present to you Monsieur are my own and not those I was sent over with
Then I see still less reason for listening to them
M Riviere again looked into his hat as if considering whether these last words were not a sufficiently broad hint to put it on and be gone Then he spoke with sudden decision Monsieur—will you tell me one thing Is it my right to be here that you question Or do you perhaps believe the whole matter to be already closed
His quiet insistence made Archer feel the clumsiness of his own bluster M Riviere had succeeded in imposing himself Archer reddening slightly dropped into his chair again and signed to the young man to be seated
I beg your pardon but why isnt the matter closed
M Riviere gazed back at him with anguish You do then agree with the rest of the family that in face of the new proposals I have brought it is hardly possible for Madame Olenska not to return to her husband
Good God Archer exclaimed and his visitor gave out a low murmur of confirmation
Before seeing her I saw—at Count Olenskis request—Mr Lovell Mingott with whom I had several talks before going to Boston I understand that he represents his mothers view and that Mrs Manson Mingotts influence is great throughout her family
Archer sat silent with the sense of clinging to the edge of a sliding precipice The discovery that he had been excluded from a share in these negotiations and even from the knowledge that they were on foot caused him a surprise hardly dulled by the acuter wonder of what he was learning He saw in a flash that if the family had ceased to consult him it was because some deep tribal instinct warned them that he was no longer on their side and he recalled with a start of comprehension a remark of Mays during their drive home from Mrs Manson Mingotts on the day of the Archery Meeting Perhaps after all Ellen would be happier with her husband
Even in the tumult of new discoveries Archer remembered his indignant exclamation and the fact that since then his wife had never named Madame Olenska to him Her careless allusion had no doubt been the straw held up to see which way the wind blew the result had been reported to the family and thereafter Archer had been tacitly omitted from their counsels He admired the tribal discipline which made May bow to this decision She would not have done so he knew had her conscience protested but she probably shared the family view that Madame Olenska would be better off as an unhappy wife than as a separated one and that there was no use in discussing the case with Newland who had an awkward way of suddenly not seeming to take the most fundamental things for granted
Archer looked up and met his visitors anxious gaze Dont you know Monsieur—is it possible you dont know—that the family begin to doubt if they have the right to advise the Countess to refuse her husbands last proposals
The proposals you brought
The proposals I brought
It was on Archers lips to exclaim that whatever he knew or did not know was no concern of M Rivieres but something in the humble and yet courageous tenacity of M Rivieres gaze made him reject this conclusion and he met the young mans question with another What is your object in speaking to me of this
He had not to wait a moment for the answer To beg you Monsieur—to beg you with all the force Im capable of—not to let her go back—Oh dont let her M Riviere exclaimed
Archer looked at him with increasing astonishment There was no mistaking the sincerity of his distress or the strength of his determination he had evidently resolved to let everything go by the board but the supreme need of thus putting himself on record Archer considered
May I ask he said at length if this is the line you took with the Countess Olenska
M Riviere reddened but his eyes did not falter No Monsieur I accepted my mission in good faith I really believed—for reasons I need not trouble you with—that it would be better for Madame Olenska to recover her situation her fortune the social consideration that her husbands standing gives her
So I supposed you could hardly have accepted such a mission otherwise
I should not have accepted it
Well then— Archer paused again and their eyes met in another protracted scrutiny
Ah Monsieur after I had seen her after I had listened to her I knew she was better off here
You knew—
Monsieur I discharged my mission faithfully I put the Counts arguments I stated his offers without adding any comment of my own The Countess was good enough to listen patiently she carried her goodness so far as to see me twice she considered impartially all I had come to say And it was in the course of these two talks that I changed my mind that I came to see things differently
May I ask what led to this change
Simply seeing the change in HER M Riviere replied
The change in her Then you knew her before
The young mans colour again rose I used to see her in her husbands house I have known Count Olenski for many years You can imagine that he would not have sent a stranger on such a mission
Archers gaze wandering away to the blank walls of the office rested on a hanging calendar surmounted by the rugged features of the President of the United States That such a conversation should be going on anywhere within the millions of square miles subject to his rule seemed as strange as anything that the imagination could invent
The change—what sort of a change
Ah Monsieur if I could tell you M Riviere paused Tenez—the discovery I suppose of what Id never thought of before that shes an American And that if youre an American of HER kind—of your kind—things that are accepted in certain other societies or at least put up with as part of a general convenient giveandtake—become unthinkable simply unthinkable If Madame Olenskas relations understood what these things were their opposition to her returning would no doubt be as unconditional as her own but they seem to regard her husbands wish to have her back as proof of an irresistible longing for domestic life M Riviere paused and then added Whereas its far from being as simple as that
Archer looked back to the President of the United States and then down at his desk and at the papers scattered on it For a second or two he could not trust himself to speak During this interval he heard M Rivieres chair pushed back and was aware that the young man had risen When he glanced up again he saw that his visitor was as moved as himself
Thank you Archer said simply
Theres nothing to thank me for Monsieur it is I rather— M Riviere broke off as if speech for him too were difficult I should like though he continued in a firmer voice to add one thing You asked me if I was in Count Olenskis employ I am at this moment I returned to him a few months ago for reasons of private necessity such as may happen to any one who has persons ill and older persons dependent on him But from the moment that I have taken the step of coming here to say these things to you I consider myself discharged and I shall tell him so on my return and give him the reasons Thats all Monsieur
M Riviere bowed and drew back a step
Thank you Archer said again as their hands met
XXVI
Every year on the fifteenth of October Fifth Avenue opened its shutters unrolled its carpets and hung up its triple layer of windowcurtains
By the first of November this household ritual was over and society had begun to look about and take stock of itself By the fifteenth the season was in full blast Opera and theatres were putting forth their new attractions dinnerengagements were accumulating and dates for dances being fixed And punctually at about this time Mrs Archer always said that New York was very much changed
Observing it from the lofty standpoint of a nonparticipant she was able with the help of Mr Sillerton Jackson and Miss Sophy to trace each new crack in its surface and all the strange weeds pushing up between the ordered rows of social vegetables It had been one of the amusements of Archers youth to wait for this annual pronouncement of his mothers and to hear her enumerate the minute signs of disintegration that his careless gaze had overlooked For New York to Mrs Archers mind never changed without changing for the worse and in this view Miss Sophy Jackson heartily concurred
Mr Sillerton Jackson as became a man of the world suspended his judgment and listened with an amused impartiality to the lamentations of the ladies But even he never denied that New York had changed and Newland Archer in the winter of the second year of his marriage was himself obliged to admit that if it had not actually changed it was certainly changing
These points had been raised as usual at Mrs Archers Thanksgiving dinner At the date when she was officially enjoined to give thanks for the blessings of the year it was her habit to take a mournful though not embittered stock of her world and wonder what there was to be thankful for At any rate not the state of society society if it could be said to exist was rather a spectacle on which to call down Biblical imprecations—and in fact every one knew what the Reverend Dr Ashmore meant when he chose a text from Jeremiah chap ii verse 25 for his Thanksgiving sermon Dr Ashmore the new Rector of St Matthews had been chosen because he was very advanced his sermons were considered bold in thought and novel in language When he fulminated against fashionable society he always spoke of its trend and to Mrs Archer it was terrifying and yet fascinating to feel herself part of a community that was trending
Theres no doubt that Dr Ashmore is right there IS a marked trend she said as if it were something visible and measurable like a crack in a house
It was odd though to preach about it on Thanksgiving Miss Jackson opined and her hostess drily rejoined Oh he means us to give thanks for whats left
Archer had been wont to smile at these annual vaticinations of his mothers but this year even he was obliged to acknowledge as he listened to an enumeration of the changes that the trend was visible
The extravagance in dress— Miss Jackson began Sillerton took me to the first night of the Opera and I can only tell you that Jane Merrys dress was the only one I recognised from last year and even that had had the front panel changed Yet I know she got it out from Worth only two years ago because my seamstress always goes in to make over her Paris dresses before she wears them
Ah Jane Merry is one of US said Mrs Archer sighing as if it were not such an enviable thing to be in an age when ladies were beginning to flaunt abroad their Paris dresses as soon as they were out of the Custom House instead of letting them mellow under lock and key in the manner of Mrs Archers contemporaries
Yes shes one of the few In my youth Miss Jackson rejoined it was considered vulgar to dress in the newest fashions and Amy Sillerton has always told me that in Boston the rule was to put away ones Paris dresses for two years Old Mrs Baxter Pennilow who did everything handsomely used to import twelve a year two velvet two satin two silk and the other six of poplin and the finest cashmere It was a standing order and as she was ill for two years before she died they found fortyeight Worth dresses that had never been taken out of tissue paper and when the girls left off their mourning they were able to wear the first lot at the Symphony concerts without looking in advance of the fashion
Ah well Boston is more conservative than New York but I always think its a safe rule for a lady to lay aside her French dresses for one season Mrs Archer conceded
It was Beaufort who started the new fashion by making his wife clap her new clothes on her back as soon as they arrived I must say at times it takes all Reginas distinction not to look like like Miss Jackson glanced around the table caught Janeys bulging gaze and took refuge in an unintelligible murmur
Like her rivals said Mr Sillerton Jackson with the air of producing an epigram
Oh— the ladies murmured and Mrs Archer added partly to distract her daughters attention from forbidden topics Poor Regina Her Thanksgiving hasnt been a very cheerful one Im afraid Have you heard the rumours about Beauforts speculations Sillerton
Mr Jackson nodded carelessly Every one had heard the rumours in question and he scorned to confirm a tale that was already common property
A gloomy silence fell upon the party No one really liked Beaufort and it was not wholly unpleasant to think the worst of his private life but the idea of his having brought financial dishonour on his wifes family was too shocking to be enjoyed even by his enemies Archers New York tolerated hypocrisy in private relations but in business matters it exacted a limpid and impeccable honesty It was a long time since any wellknown banker had failed discreditably but every one remembered the social extinction visited on the heads of the firm when the last event of the kind had happened It would be the same with the Beauforts in spite of his power and her popularity not all the leagued strength of the Dallas connection would save poor Regina if there were any truth in the reports of her husbands unlawful speculations
The talk took refuge in less ominous topics but everything they touched on seemed to confirm Mrs Archers sense of an accelerated trend
Of course Newland I know you let dear May go to Mrs Strutherss Sunday evenings— she began and May interposed gaily Oh you know everybody goes to Mrs Strutherss now and she was invited to Grannys last reception
It was thus Archer reflected that New York managed its transitions conspiring to ignore them till they were well over and then in all good faith imagining that they had taken place in a preceding age There was always a traitor in the citadel and after he or generally she had surrendered the keys what was the use of pretending that it was impregnable Once people had tasted of Mrs Strutherss easy Sunday hospitality they were not likely to sit at home remembering that her champagne was transmuted ShoePolish
I know dear I know Mrs Archer sighed Such things have to be I suppose as long as AMUSEMENT is what people go out for but Ive never quite forgiven your cousin Madame Olenska for being the first person to countenance Mrs Struthers
A sudden blush rose to young Mrs Archers face it surprised her husband as much as the other guests about the table Oh ELLEN— she murmured much in the same accusing and yet deprecating tone in which her parents might have said Oh THE BLENKERS—
It was the note which the family had taken to sounding on the mention of the Countess Olenskas name since she had surprised and inconvenienced them by remaining obdurate to her husbands advances but on Mays lips it gave food for thought and Archer looked at her with the sense of strangeness that sometimes came over him when she was most in the tone of her environment
His mother with less than her usual sensitiveness to atmosphere still insisted Ive always thought that people like the Countess Olenska who have lived in aristocratic societies ought to help us to keep up our social distinctions instead of ignoring them
Mays blush remained permanently vivid it seemed to have a significance beyond that implied by the recognition of Madame Olenskas social bad faith
Ive no doubt we all seem alike to foreigners said Miss Jackson tartly
I dont think Ellen cares for society but nobody knows exactly what she does care for May continued as if she had been groping for something noncommittal
Ah well— Mrs Archer sighed again
Everybody knew that the Countess Olenska was no longer in the good graces of her family Even her devoted champion old Mrs Manson Mingott had been unable to defend her refusal to return to her husband The Mingotts had not proclaimed their disapproval aloud their sense of solidarity was too strong They had simply as Mrs Welland said let poor Ellen find her own level—and that mortifyingly and incomprehensibly was in the dim depths where the Blenkers prevailed and people who wrote celebrated their untidy rites It was incredible but it was a fact that Ellen in spite of all her opportunities and her privileges had become simply Bohemian The fact enforced the contention that she had made a fatal mistake in not returning to Count Olenski After all a young womans place was under her husbands roof especially when she had left it in circumstances that well if one had cared to look into them
Madame Olenska is a great favourite with the gentlemen said Miss Sophy with her air of wishing to put forth something conciliatory when she knew that she was planting a dart
Ah thats the danger that a young woman like Madame Olenska is always exposed to Mrs Archer mournfully agreed and the ladies on this conclusion gathered up their trains to seek the carcel globes of the drawingroom while Archer and Mr Sillerton Jackson withdrew to the Gothic library
Once established before the grate and consoling himself for the inadequacy of the dinner by the perfection of his cigar Mr Jackson became portentous and communicable
If the Beaufort smash comes he announced there are going to be disclosures
Archer raised his head quickly he could never hear the name without the sharp vision of Beauforts heavy figure opulently furred and shod advancing through the snow at Skuytercliff
Theres bound to be Mr Jackson continued the nastiest kind of a cleaning up He hasnt spent all his money on Regina
Oh well—thats discounted isnt it My belief is hell pull out yet said the young man wanting to change the subject
Perhaps—perhaps I know he was to see some of the influential people today Of course Mr Jackson reluctantly conceded its to be hoped they can tide him over—this time anyhow I shouldnt like to think of poor Reginas spending the rest of her life in some shabby foreign wateringplace for bankrupts
Archer said nothing It seemed to him so natural—however tragic—that money illgotten should be cruelly expiated that his mind hardly lingering over Mrs Beauforts doom wandered back to closer questions What was the meaning of Mays blush when the Countess Olenska had been mentioned
Four months had passed since the midsummer day that he and Madame Olenska had spent together and since then he had not seen her He knew that she had returned to Washington to the little house which she and Medora Manson had taken there he had written to her once—a few words asking when they were to meet again—and she had even more briefly replied Not yet
Since then there had been no farther communication between them and he had built up within himself a kind of sanctuary in which she throned among his secret thoughts and longings Little by little it became the scene of his real life of his only rational activities thither he brought the books he read the ideas and feelings which nourished him his judgments and his visions Outside it in the scene of his actual life he moved with a growing sense of unreality and insufficiency blundering against familiar prejudices and traditional points of view as an absentminded man goes on bumping into the furniture of his own room Absent—that was what he was so absent from everything most densely real and near to those about him that it sometimes startled him to find they still imagined he was there
He became aware that Mr Jackson was clearing his throat preparatory to farther revelations
I dont know of course how far your wifes family are aware of what people say about—well about Madame Olenskas refusal to accept her husbands latest offer
Archer was silent and Mr Jackson obliquely continued Its a pity—its certainly a pity—that she refused it
A pity In Gods name why
Mr Jackson looked down his leg to the unwrinkled sock that joined it to a glossy pump
Well—to put it on the lowest ground—whats she going to live on now
Now—
If Beaufort—
Archer sprang up his fist banging down on the black walnutedge of the writingtable The wells of the brass doubleinkstand danced in their sockets
What the devil do you mean sir
Mr Jackson shifting himself slightly in his chair turned a tranquil gaze on the young mans burning face
Well—I have it on pretty good authority—in fact on old Catherines herself—that the family reduced Countess Olenskas allowance considerably when she definitely refused to go back to her husband and as by this refusal she also forfeits the money settled on her when she married—which Olenski was ready to make over to her if she returned—why what the devil do YOU mean my dear boy by asking me what I mean Mr Jackson goodhumouredly retorted
Archer moved toward the mantelpiece and bent over to knock his ashes into the grate
I dont know anything of Madame Olenskas private affairs but I dont need to to be certain that what you insinuate—
Oh I dont its Lefferts for one Mr Jackson interposed
Lefferts—who made love to her and got snubbed for it Archer broke out contemptuously
Ah—DID he snapped the other as if this were exactly the fact he had been laying a trap for He still sat sideways from the fire so that his hard old gaze held Archers face as if in a spring of steel
Well well its a pity she didnt go back before Beauforts cropper he repeated If she goes NOW and if he fails it will only confirm the general impression which isnt by any means peculiar to Lefferts by the way
Oh she wont go back now less than ever Archer had no sooner said it than he had once more the feeling that it was exactly what Mr Jackson had been waiting for
The old gentleman considered him attentively Thats your opinion eh Well no doubt you know But everybody will tell you that the few pennies Medora Manson has left are all in Beauforts hands and how the two women are to keep their heads above water unless he does I cant imagine Of course Madame Olenska may still soften old Catherine whos been the most inexorably opposed to her staying and old Catherine could make her any allowance she chooses But we all know that she hates parting with good money and the rest of the family have no particular interest in keeping Madame Olenska here
Archer was burning with unavailing wrath he was exactly in the state when a man is sure to do something stupid knowing all the while that he is doing it
He saw that Mr Jackson had been instantly struck by the fact that Madame Olenskas differences with her grandmother and her other relations were not known to him and that the old gentleman had drawn his own conclusions as to the reasons for Archers exclusion from the family councils This fact warned Archer to go warily but the insinuations about Beaufort made him reckless He was mindful however if not of his own danger at least of the fact that Mr Jackson was under his mothers roof and consequently his guest Old New York scrupulously observed the etiquette of hospitality and no discussion with a guest was ever allowed to degenerate into a disagreement
Shall we go up and join my mother he suggested curtly as Mr Jacksons last cone of ashes dropped into the brass ashtray at his elbow
On the drive homeward May remained oddly silent through the darkness he still felt her enveloped in her menacing blush What its menace meant he could not guess but he was sufficiently warned by the fact that Madame Olenskas name had evoked it
They went upstairs and he turned into the library She usually followed him but he heard her passing down the passage to her bedroom
May he called out impatiently and she came back with a slight glance of surprise at his tone
This lamp is smoking again I should think the servants might see that its kept properly trimmed he grumbled nervously
Im so sorry it shant happen again she answered in the firm bright tone she had learned from her mother and it exasperated Archer to feel that she was already beginning to humour him like a younger Mr Welland She bent over to lower the wick and as the light struck up on her white shoulders and the clear curves of her face he thought How young she is For what endless years this life will have to go on
He felt with a kind of horror his own strong youth and the bounding blood in his veins Look here he said suddenly I may have to go to Washington for a few days—soon next week perhaps
Her hand remained on the key of the lamp as she turned to him slowly The heat from its flame had brought back a glow to her face but it paled as she looked up
On business she asked in a tone which implied that there could be no other conceivable reason and that she had put the question automatically as if merely to finish his own sentence
On business naturally Theres a patent case coming up before the Supreme Court— He gave the name of the inventor and went on furnishing details with all Lawrence Leffertss practised glibness while she listened attentively saying at intervals Yes I see
The change will do you good she said simply when he had finished and you must be sure to go and see Ellen she added looking him straight in the eyes with her cloudless smile and speaking in the tone she might have employed in urging him not to neglect some irksome family duty
It was the only word that passed between them on the subject but in the code in which they had both been trained it meant Of course you understand that I know all that people have been saying about Ellen and heartily sympathise with my family in their effort to get her to return to her husband I also know that for some reason you have not chosen to tell me you have advised her against this course which all the older men of the family as well as our grandmother agree in approving and that it is owing to your encouragement that Ellen defies us all and exposes herself to the kind of criticism of which Mr Sillerton Jackson probably gave you this evening the hint that has made you so irritable Hints have indeed not been wanting but since you appear unwilling to take them from others I offer you this one myself in the only form in which wellbred people of our kind can communicate unpleasant things to each other by letting you understand that I know you mean to see Ellen when you are in Washington and are perhaps going there expressly for that purpose and that since you are sure to see her I wish you to do so with my full and explicit approval—and to take the opportunity of letting her know what the course of conduct you have encouraged her in is likely to lead to
Her hand was still on the key of the lamp when the last word of this mute message reached him She turned the wick down lifted off the globe and breathed on the sulky flame
They smell less if one blows them out she explained with her bright housekeeping air On the threshold she turned and paused for his kiss
XXVII
Wall Street the next day had more reassuring reports of Beauforts situation They were not definite but they were hopeful It was generally understood that he could call on powerful influences in case of emergency and that he had done so with success and that evening when Mrs Beaufort appeared at the Opera wearing her old smile and a new emerald necklace society drew a breath of relief
New York was inexorable in its condemnation of business irregularities So far there had been no exception to its tacit rule that those who broke the law of probity must pay and every one was aware that even Beaufort and Beauforts wife would be offered up unflinchingly to this principle But to be obliged to offer them up would be not only painful but inconvenient The disappearance of the Beauforts would leave a considerable void in their compact little circle and those who were too ignorant or too careless to shudder at the moral catastrophe bewailed in advance the loss of the best ballroom in New York
Archer had definitely made up his mind to go to Washington He was waiting only for the opening of the lawsuit of which he had spoken to May so that its date might coincide with that of his visit but on the following Tuesday he learned from Mr Letterblair that the case might be postponed for several weeks Nevertheless he went home that afternoon determined in any event to leave the next evening The chances were that May who knew nothing of his professional life and had never shown any interest in it would not learn of the postponement should it take place nor remember the names of the litigants if they were mentioned before her and at any rate he could no longer put off seeing Madame Olenska There were too many things that he must say to her
On the Wednesday morning when he reached his office Mr Letterblair met him with a troubled face Beaufort after all had not managed to tide over but by setting afloat the rumour that he had done so he had reassured his depositors and heavy payments had poured into the bank till the previous evening when disturbing reports again began to predominate In consequence a run on the bank had begun and its doors were likely to close before the day was over The ugliest things were being said of Beauforts dastardly manoeuvre and his failure promised to be one of the most discreditable in the history of Wall Street
The extent of the calamity left Mr Letterblair white and incapacitated Ive seen bad things in my time but nothing as bad as this Everybody we know will be hit one way or another And what will be done about Mrs Beaufort What CAN be done about her I pity Mrs Manson Mingott as much as anybody coming at her age theres no knowing what effect this affair may have on her She always believed in Beaufort—she made a friend of him And theres the whole Dallas connection poor Mrs Beaufort is related to every one of you Her only chance would be to leave her husband—yet how can any one tell her so Her duty is at his side and luckily she seems always to have been blind to his private weaknesses
There was a knock and Mr Letterblair turned his head sharply What is it I cant be disturbed
A clerk brought in a letter for Archer and withdrew Recognising his wifes hand the young man opened the envelope and read Wont you please come up town as early as you can Granny had a slight stroke last night In some mysterious way she found out before any one else this awful news about the bank Uncle Lovell is away shooting and the idea of the disgrace has made poor Papa so nervous that he has a temperature and cant leave his room Mamma needs you dreadfully and I do hope you can get away at once and go straight to Grannys
Archer handed the note to his senior partner and a few minutes later was crawling northward in a crowded horsecar which he exchanged at Fourteenth Street for one of the high staggering omnibuses of the Fifth Avenue line It was after twelve oclock when this laborious vehicle dropped him at old Catherines The sittingroom window on the ground floor where she usually throned was tenanted by the inadequate figure of her daughter Mrs Welland who signed a haggard welcome as she caught sight of Archer and at the door he was met by May The hall wore the unnatural appearance peculiar to wellkept houses suddenly invaded by illness wraps and furs lay in heaps on the chairs a doctors bag and overcoat were on the table and beside them letters and cards had already piled up unheeded
May looked pale but smiling Dr Bencomb who had just come for the second time took a more hopeful view and Mrs Mingotts dauntless determination to live and get well was already having an effect on her family May led Archer into the old ladys sittingroom where the sliding doors opening into the bedroom had been drawn shut and the heavy yellow damask portieres dropped over them and here Mrs Welland communicated to him in horrified undertones the details of the catastrophe It appeared that the evening before something dreadful and mysterious had happened At about eight oclock just after Mrs Mingott had finished the game of solitaire that she always played after dinner the doorbell had rung and a lady so thickly veiled that the servants did not immediately recognise her had asked to be received
The butler hearing a familiar voice had thrown open the sittingroom door announcing Mrs Julius Beaufort—and had then closed it again on the two ladies They must have been together he thought about an hour When Mrs Mingotts bell rang Mrs Beaufort had already slipped away unseen and the old lady white and vast and terrible sat alone in her great chair and signed to the butler to help her into her room She seemed at that time though obviously distressed in complete control of her body and brain The mulatto maid put her to bed brought her a cup of tea as usual laid everything straight in the room and went away but at three in the morning the bell rang again and the two servants hastening in at this unwonted summons for old Catherine usually slept like a baby had found their mistress sitting up against her pillows with a crooked smile on her face and one little hand hanging limp from its huge arm
The stroke had clearly been a slight one for she was able to articulate and to make her wishes known and soon after the doctors first visit she had begun to regain control of her facial muscles But the alarm had been great and proportionately great was the indignation when it was gathered from Mrs Mingotts fragmentary phrases that Regina Beaufort had come to ask her—incredible effrontery—to back up her husband see them through—not to desert them as she called it—in fact to induce the whole family to cover and condone their monstrous dishonour
I said to her Honours always been honour and honesty honesty in Manson Mingotts house and will be till Im carried out of it feet first the old woman had stammered into her daughters ear in the thick voice of the partly paralysed And when she said But my name Auntie—my names Regina Dallas I said It was Beaufort when he covered you with jewels and its got to stay Beaufort now that hes covered you with shame
So much with tears and gasps of horror Mrs Welland imparted blanched and demolished by the unwonted obligation of having at last to fix her eyes on the unpleasant and the discreditable If only I could keep it from your fatherinlaw he always says Augusta for pitys sake dont destroy my last illusions—and how am I to prevent his knowing these horrors the poor lady wailed
After all Mamma he wont have SEEN them her daughter suggested and Mrs Welland sighed Ah no thank heaven hes safe in bed And Dr Bencomb has promised to keep him there till poor Mamma is better and Regina has been got away somewhere
Archer had seated himself near the window and was gazing out blankly at the deserted thoroughfare It was evident that he had been summoned rather for the moral support of the stricken ladies than because of any specific aid that he could render Mr Lovell Mingott had been telegraphed for and messages were being despatched by hand to the members of the family living in New York and meanwhile there was nothing to do but to discuss in hushed tones the consequences of Beauforts dishonour and of his wifes unjustifiable action
Mrs Lovell Mingott who had been in another room writing notes presently reappeared and added her voice to the discussion In THEIR day the elder ladies agreed the wife of a man who had done anything disgraceful in business had only one idea to efface herself to disappear with him There was the case of poor Grandmamma Spicer your greatgrandmother May Of course Mrs Welland hastened to add your greatgrandfathers money difficulties were private—losses at cards or signing a note for somebody—I never quite knew because Mamma would never speak of it But she was brought up in the country because her mother had to leave New York after the disgrace whatever it was they lived up the Hudson alone winter and summer till Mamma was sixteen It would never have occurred to Grandmamma Spicer to ask the family to countenance her as I understand Regina calls it though a private disgrace is nothing compared to the scandal of ruining hundreds of innocent people
Yes it would be more becoming in Regina to hide her own countenance than to talk about other peoples Mrs Lovell Mingott agreed I understand that the emerald necklace she wore at the Opera last Friday had been sent on approval from Ball and Blacks in the afternoon I wonder if theyll ever get it back
Archer listened unmoved to the relentless chorus The idea of absolute financial probity as the first law of a gentlemans code was too deeply ingrained in him for sentimental considerations to weaken it An adventurer like Lemuel Struthers might build up the millions of his Shoe Polish on any number of shady dealings but unblemished honesty was the noblesse oblige of old financial New York Nor did Mrs Beauforts fate greatly move Archer He felt no doubt more sorry for her than her indignant relatives but it seemed to him that the tie between husband and wife even if breakable in prosperity should be indissoluble in misfortune As Mr Letterblair had said a wifes place was at her husbands side when he was in trouble but societys place was not at his side and Mrs Beauforts cool assumption that it was seemed almost to make her his accomplice The mere idea of a womans appealing to her family to screen her husbands business dishonour was inadmissible since it was the one thing that the Family as an institution could not do
The mulatto maid called Mrs Lovell Mingott into the hall and the latter came back in a moment with a frowning brow
She wants me to telegraph for Ellen Olenska I had written to Ellen of course and to Medora but now it seems thats not enough Im to telegraph to her immediately and to tell her that shes to come alone
The announcement was received in silence Mrs Welland sighed resignedly and May rose from her seat and went to gather up some newspapers that had been scattered on the floor
I suppose it must be done Mrs Lovell Mingott continued as if hoping to be contradicted and May turned back toward the middle of the room
Of course it must be done she said Granny knows what she wants and we must carry out all her wishes Shall I write the telegram for you Auntie If it goes at once Ellen can probably catch tomorrow mornings train She pronounced the syllables of the name with a peculiar clearness as if she had tapped on two silver bells
Well it cant go at once Jasper and the pantryboy are both out with notes and telegrams
May turned to her husband with a smile But heres Newland ready to do anything Will you take the telegram Newland Therell be just time before luncheon
Archer rose with a murmur of readiness and she seated herself at old Catherines rosewood Bonheur du Jour and wrote out the message in her large immature hand When it was written she blotted it neatly and handed it to Archer
What a pity she said that you and Ellen will cross each other on the way—Newland she added turning to her mother and aunt is obliged to go to Washington about a patent lawsuit that is coming up before the Supreme Court I suppose Uncle Lovell will be back by tomorrow night and with Granny improving so much it doesnt seem right to ask Newland to give up an important engagement for the firm—does it
She paused as if for an answer and Mrs Welland hastily declared Oh of course not darling Your Granny would be the last person to wish it As Archer left the room with the telegram he heard his motherinlaw add presumably to Mrs Lovell Mingott But why on earth she should make you telegraph for Ellen Olenska— and Mays clear voice rejoin Perhaps its to urge on her again that after all her duty is with her husband
The outer door closed on Archer and he walked hastily away toward the telegraph office
XXVIII
Olol—howjer spell it anyhow asked the tart young lady to whom Archer had pushed his wifes telegram across the brass ledge of the Western Union office
Olenska—Olenska he repeated drawing back the message in order to print out the foreign syllables above Mays rambling script
Its an unlikely name for a New York telegraph office at least in this quarter an unexpected voice observed and turning around Archer saw Lawrence Lefferts at his elbow pulling an imperturbable moustache and affecting not to glance at the message
Hallo Newland thought Id catch you here Ive just heard of old Mrs Mingotts stroke and as I was on my way to the house I saw you turning down this street and nipped after you I suppose youve come from there
Archer nodded and pushed his telegram under the lattice
Very bad eh Lefferts continued Wiring to the family I suppose I gather it IS bad if youre including Countess Olenska
Archers lips stiffened he felt a savage impulse to dash his fist into the long vain handsome face at his side
Why he questioned
Lefferts who was known to shrink from discussion raised his eyebrows with an ironic grimace that warned the other of the watching damsel behind the lattice Nothing could be worse form the look reminded Archer than any display of temper in a public place
Archer had never been more indifferent to the requirements of form but his impulse to do Lawrence Lefferts a physical injury was only momentary The idea of bandying Ellen Olenskas name with him at such a time and on whatsoever provocation was unthinkable He paid for his telegram and the two young men went out together into the street There Archer having regained his selfcontrol went on Mrs Mingott is much better the doctor feels no anxiety whatever and Lefferts with profuse expressions of relief asked him if he had heard that there were beastly bad rumours again about Beaufort
That afternoon the announcement of the Beaufort failure was in all the papers It overshadowed the report of Mrs Manson Mingotts stroke and only the few who had heard of the mysterious connection between the two events thought of ascribing old Catherines illness to anything but the accumulation of flesh and years
The whole of New York was darkened by the tale of Beauforts dishonour There had never as Mr Letterblair said been a worse case in his memory nor for that matter in the memory of the faroff Letterblair who had given his name to the firm The bank had continued to take in money for a whole day after its failure was inevitable and as many of its clients belonged to one or another of the ruling clans Beauforts duplicity seemed doubly cynical If Mrs Beaufort had not taken the tone that such misfortunes the word was her own were the test of friendship compassion for her might have tempered the general indignation against her husband As it was—and especially after the object of her nocturnal visit to Mrs Manson Mingott had become known—her cynicism was held to exceed his and she had not the excuse—nor her detractors the satisfaction—of pleading that she was a foreigner It was some comfort to those whose securities were not in jeopardy to be able to remind themselves that Beaufort WAS but after all if a Dallas of South Carolina took his view of the case and glibly talked of his soon being on his feet again the argument lost its edge and there was nothing to do but to accept this awful evidence of the indissolubility of marriage Society must manage to get on without the Beauforts and there was an end of it—except indeed for such hapless victims of the disaster as Medora Manson the poor old Miss Lannings and certain other misguided ladies of good family who if only they had listened to Mr Henry van der Luyden
The best thing the Beauforts can do said Mrs Archer summing it up as if she were pronouncing a diagnosis and prescribing a course of treatment is to go and live at Reginas little place in North Carolina Beaufort has always kept a racing stable and he had better breed trotting horses I should say he had all the qualities of a successful horsedealer Every one agreed with her but no one condescended to enquire what the Beauforts really meant to do
The next day Mrs Manson Mingott was much better she recovered her voice sufficiently to give orders that no one should mention the Beauforts to her again and asked—when Dr Bencomb appeared—what in the world her family meant by making such a fuss about her health
If people of my age WILL eat chickensalad in the evening what are they to expect she enquired and the doctor having opportunely modified her dietary the stroke was transformed into an attack of indigestion But in spite of her firm tone old Catherine did not wholly recover her former attitude toward life The growing remoteness of old age though it had not diminished her curiosity about her neighbours had blunted her never very lively compassion for their troubles and she seemed to have no difficulty in putting the Beaufort disaster out of her mind But for the first time she became absorbed in her own symptoms and began to take a sentimental interest in certain members of her family to whom she had hitherto been contemptuously indifferent
Mr Welland in particular had the privilege of attracting her notice Of her sonsinlaw he was the one she had most consistently ignored and all his wifes efforts to represent him as a man of forceful character and marked intellectual ability if he had only chosen had been met with a derisive chuckle But his eminence as a valetudinarian now made him an object of engrossing interest and Mrs Mingott issued an imperial summons to him to come and compare diets as soon as his temperature permitted for old Catherine was now the first to recognise that one could not be too careful about temperatures
Twentyfour hours after Madame Olenskas summons a telegram announced that she would arrive from Washington on the evening of the following day At the Wellands where the Newland Archers chanced to be lunching the question as to who should meet her at Jersey City was immediately raised and the material difficulties amid which the Welland household struggled as if it had been a frontier outpost lent animation to the debate It was agreed that Mrs Welland could not possibly go to Jersey City because she was to accompany her husband to old Catherines that afternoon and the brougham could not be spared since if Mr Welland were upset by seeing his motherinlaw for the first time after her attack he might have to be taken home at a moments notice The Welland sons would of course be down town Mr Lovell Mingott would be just hurrying back from his shooting and the Mingott carriage engaged in meeting him and one could not ask May at the close of a winter afternoon to go alone across the ferry to Jersey City even in her own carriage Nevertheless it might appear inhospitable—and contrary to old Catherines express wishes—if Madame Olenska were allowed to arrive without any of the family being at the station to receive her It was just like Ellen Mrs Wellands tired voice implied to place the family in such a dilemma Its always one thing after another the poor lady grieved in one of her rare revolts against fate the only thing that makes me think Mamma must be less well than Dr Bencomb will admit is this morbid desire to have Ellen come at once however inconvenient it is to meet her
The words had been thoughtless as the utterances of impatience often are and Mr Welland was upon them with a pounce
Augusta he said turning pale and laying down his fork have you any other reason for thinking that Bencomb is less to be relied on than he was Have you noticed that he has been less conscientious than usual in following up my case or your mothers
It was Mrs Wellands turn to grow pale as the endless consequences of her blunder unrolled themselves before her but she managed to laugh and take a second helping of scalloped oysters before she said struggling back into her old armour of cheerfulness My dear how could you imagine such a thing I only meant that after the decided stand Mamma took about its being Ellens duty to go back to her husband it seems strange that she should be seized with this sudden whim to see her when there are half a dozen other grandchildren that she might have asked for But we must never forget that Mamma in spite of her wonderful vitality is a very old woman
Mr Wellands brow remained clouded and it was evident that his perturbed imagination had fastened at once on this last remark Yes your mothers a very old woman and for all we know Bencomb may not be as successful with very old people As you say my dear its always one thing after another and in another ten or fifteen years I suppose I shall have the pleasing duty of looking about for a new doctor Its always better to make such a change before its absolutely necessary And having arrived at this Spartan decision Mr Welland firmly took up his fork
But all the while Mrs Welland began again as she rose from the luncheontable and led the way into the wilderness of purple satin and malachite known as the back drawingroom I dont see how Ellens to be got here tomorrow evening and I do like to have things settled for at least twentyfour hours ahead
Archer turned from the fascinated contemplation of a small painting representing two Cardinals carousing in an octagonal ebony frame set with medallions of onyx
Shall I fetch her he proposed I can easily get away from the office in time to meet the brougham at the ferry if May will send it there His heart was beating excitedly as he spoke
Mrs Welland heaved a sigh of gratitude and May who had moved away to the window turned to shed on him a beam of approval So you see Mamma everything WILL be settled twentyfour hours in advance she said stooping over to kiss her mothers troubled forehead
Mays brougham awaited her at the door and she was to drive Archer to Union Square where he could pick up a Broadway car to carry him to the office As she settled herself in her corner she said I didnt want to worry Mamma by raising fresh obstacles but how can you meet Ellen tomorrow and bring her back to New York when youre going to Washington
Oh Im not going Archer answered
Not going Why whats happened Her voice was as clear as a bell and full of wifely solicitude
The case is off—postponed
Postponed How odd I saw a note this morning from Mr Letterblair to Mamma saying that he was going to Washington tomorrow for the big patent case that he was to argue before the Supreme Court You said it was a patent case didnt you
Well—thats it the whole office cant go Letterblair decided to go this morning
Then its NOT postponed she continued with an insistence so unlike her that he felt the blood rising to his face as if he were blushing for her unwonted lapse from all the traditional delicacies
No but my going is he answered cursing the unnecessary explanations that he had given when he had announced his intention of going to Washington and wondering where he had read that clever liars give details but that the cleverest do not It did not hurt him half as much to tell May an untruth as to see her trying to pretend that she had not detected him
Im not going till later on luckily for the convenience of your family he continued taking base refuge in sarcasm As he spoke he felt that she was looking at him and he turned his eyes to hers in order not to appear to be avoiding them Their glances met for a second and perhaps let them into each others meanings more deeply than either cared to go
Yes it IS awfully convenient May brightly agreed that you should be able to meet Ellen after all you saw how much Mamma appreciated your offering to do it
Oh Im delighted to do it The carriage stopped and as he jumped out she leaned to him and laid her hand on his Goodbye dearest she said her eyes so blue that he wondered afterward if they had shone on him through tears
He turned away and hurried across Union Square repeating to himself in a sort of inward chant Its all of two hours from Jersey City to old Catherines Its all of two hours—and it may be more
XXIX
His wifes dark blue brougham with the wedding varnish still on it met Archer at the ferry and conveyed him luxuriously to the Pennsylvania terminus in Jersey City
It was a sombre snowy afternoon and the gaslamps were lit in the big reverberating station As he paced the platform waiting for the Washington express he remembered that there were people who thought there would one day be a tunnel under the Hudson through which the trains of the Pennsylvania railway would run straight into New York They were of the brotherhood of visionaries who likewise predicted the building of ships that would cross the Atlantic in five days the invention of a flying machine lighting by electricity telephonic communication without wires and other Arabian Night marvels
I dont care which of their visions comes true Archer mused as long as the tunnel isnt built yet In his senseless schoolboy happiness he pictured Madame Olenskas descent from the train his discovery of her a long way off among the throngs of meaningless faces her clinging to his arm as he guided her to the carriage their slow approach to the wharf among slipping horses laden carts vociferating teamsters and then the startling quiet of the ferryboat where they would sit side by side under the snow in the motionless carriage while the earth seemed to glide away under them rolling to the other side of the sun It was incredible the number of things he had to say to her and in what eloquent order they were forming themselves on his lips
The clanging and groaning of the train came nearer and it staggered slowly into the station like a preyladen monster into its lair Archer pushed forward elbowing through the crowd and staring blindly into window after window of the highhung carriages And then suddenly he saw Madame Olenskas pale and surprised face close at hand and had again the mortified sensation of having forgotten what she looked like
They reached each other their hands met and he drew her arm through his This way—I have the carriage he said
After that it all happened as he had dreamed He helped her into the brougham with her bags and had afterward the vague recollection of having properly reassured her about her grandmother and given her a summary of the Beaufort situation he was struck by the softness of her Poor Regina Meanwhile the carriage had worked its way out of the coil about the station and they were crawling down the slippery incline to the wharf menaced by swaying coalcarts bewildered horses dishevelled expresswagons and an empty hearse—ah that hearse She shut her eyes as it passed and clutched at Archers hand
If only it doesnt mean—poor Granny
Oh no no—shes much better—shes all right really There—weve passed it he exclaimed as if that made all the difference Her hand remained in his and as the carriage lurched across the gangplank onto the ferry he bent over unbuttoned her tight brown glove and kissed her palm as if he had kissed a relic She disengaged herself with a faint smile and he said You didnt expect me today
Oh no
I meant to go to Washington to see you Id made all my arrangements—I very nearly crossed you in the train
Oh— she exclaimed as if terrified by the narrowness of their escape
Do you know—I hardly remembered you
Hardly remembered me
I mean how shall I explain I—its always so EACH TIME YOU HAPPEN TO ME ALL OVER AGAIN
Oh yes I know I know
Does it—do I too to you he insisted
She nodded looking out of the window
Ellen—Ellen—Ellen
She made no answer and he sat in silence watching her profile grow indistinct against the snowstreaked dusk beyond the window What had she been doing in all those four long months he wondered How little they knew of each other after all The precious moments were slipping away but he had forgotten everything that he had meant to say to her and could only helplessly brood on the mystery of their remoteness and their proximity which seemed to be symbolised by the fact of their sitting so close to each other and yet being unable to see each others faces
What a pretty carriage Is it Mays she asked suddenly turning her face from the window
Yes
It was May who sent you to fetch me then How kind of her
He made no answer for a moment then he said explosively Your husbands secretary came to see me the day after we met in Boston
In his brief letter to her he had made no allusion to M Rivieres visit and his intention had been to bury the incident in his bosom But her reminder that they were in his wifes carriage provoked him to an impulse of retaliation He would see if she liked his reference to Riviere any better than he liked hers to May As on certain other occasions when he had expected to shake her out of her usual composure she betrayed no sign of surprise and at once he concluded He writes to her then
M Riviere went to see you
Yes didnt you know
No she answered simply
And youre not surprised
She hesitated Why should I be He told me in Boston that he knew you that hed met you in England I think
Ellen—I must ask you one thing
Yes
I wanted to ask it after I saw him but I couldnt put it in a letter It was Riviere who helped you to get away—when you left your husband
His heart was beating suffocatingly Would she meet this question with the same composure
Yes I owe him a great debt she answered without the least tremor in her quiet voice
Her tone was so natural so almost indifferent that Archers turmoil subsided Once more she had managed by her sheer simplicity to make him feel stupidly conventional just when he thought he was flinging convention to the winds
I think youre the most honest woman I ever met he exclaimed
Oh no—but probably one of the least fussy she answered a smile in her voice
Call it what you like you look at things as they are
Ah—Ive had to Ive had to look at the Gorgon
Well—it hasnt blinded you Youve seen that shes just an old bogey like all the others
She doesnt blind one but she dries up ones tears
The answer checked the pleading on Archers lips it seemed to come from depths of experience beyond his reach The slow advance of the ferryboat had ceased and her bows bumped against the piles of the slip with a violence that made the brougham stagger and flung Archer and Madame Olenska against each other The young man trembling felt the pressure of her shoulder and passed his arm about her
If youre not blind then you must see that this cant last
What cant
Our being together—and not together
No You ought not to have come today she said in an altered voice and suddenly she turned flung her arms about him and pressed her lips to his At the same moment the carriage began to move and a gaslamp at the head of the slip flashed its light into the window She drew away and they sat silent and motionless while the brougham struggled through the congestion of carriages about the ferrylanding As they gained the street Archer began to speak hurriedly
Dont be afraid of me you neednt squeeze yourself back into your corner like that A stolen kiss isnt what I want Look Im not even trying to touch the sleeve of your jacket Dont suppose that I dont understand your reasons for not wanting to let this feeling between us dwindle into an ordinary holeandcorner loveaffair I couldnt have spoken like this yesterday because when weve been apart and Im looking forward to seeing you every thought is burnt up in a great flame But then you come and youre so much more than I remembered and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now and then with wastes of thirsty waiting between that I can sit perfectly still beside you like this with that other vision in my mind just quietly trusting to it to come true
For a moment she made no reply then she asked hardly above a whisper What do you mean by trusting to it to come true
Why—you know it will dont you
Your vision of you and me together She burst into a sudden hard laugh You choose your place well to put it to me
Do you mean because were in my wifes brougham Shall we get out and walk then I dont suppose you mind a little snow
She laughed again more gently No I shant get out and walk because my business is to get to Grannys as quickly as I can And youll sit beside me and well look not at visions but at realities
I dont know what you mean by realities The only reality to me is this
She met the words with a long silence during which the carriage rolled down an obscure sidestreet and then turned into the searching illumination of Fifth Avenue
Is it your idea then that I should live with you as your mistress—since I cant be your wife she asked
The crudeness of the question startled him the word was one that women of his class fought shy of even when their talk flitted closest about the topic He noticed that Madame Olenska pronounced it as if it had a recognised place in her vocabulary and he wondered if it had been used familiarly in her presence in the horrible life she had fled from Her question pulled him up with a jerk and he floundered
I want—I want somehow to get away with you into a world where words like that—categories like that—wont exist Where we shall be simply two human beings who love each other who are the whole of life to each other and nothing else on earth will matter
She drew a deep sigh that ended in another laugh Oh my dear—where is that country Have you ever been there she asked and as he remained sullenly dumb she went on I know so many whove tried to find it and believe me they all got out by mistake at wayside stations at places like Boulogne or Pisa or Monte Carlo—and it wasnt at all different from the old world theyd left but only rather smaller and dingier and more promiscuous
He had never heard her speak in such a tone and he remembered the phrase she had used a little while before
Yes the Gorgon HAS dried your tears he said
Well she opened my eyes too its a delusion to say that she blinds people What she does is just the contrary—she fastens their eyelids open so that theyre never again in the blessed darkness Isnt there a Chinese torture like that There ought to be Ah believe me its a miserable little country
The carriage had crossed Fortysecond Street Mays sturdy broughamhorse was carrying them northward as if he had been a Kentucky trotter Archer choked with the sense of wasted minutes and vain words
Then what exactly is your plan for us he asked
For US But theres no US in that sense Were near each other only if we stay far from each other Then we can be ourselves Otherwise were only Newland Archer the husband of Ellen Olenskas cousin and Ellen Olenska the cousin of Newland Archers wife trying to be happy behind the backs of the people who trust them
Ah Im beyond that he groaned
No youre not Youve never been beyond And I have she said in a strange voice and I know what it looks like there
He sat silent dazed with inarticulate pain Then he groped in the darkness of the carriage for the little bell that signalled orders to the coachman He remembered that May rang twice when she wished to stop He pressed the bell and the carriage drew up beside the curbstone
Why are we stopping This is not Grannys Madame Olenska exclaimed
No I shall get out here he stammered opening the door and jumping to the pavement By the light of a streetlamp he saw her startled face and the instinctive motion she made to detain him He closed the door and leaned for a moment in the window
Youre right I ought not to have come today he said lowering his voice so that the coachman should not hear She bent forward and seemed about to speak but he had already called out the order to drive on and the carriage rolled away while he stood on the corner The snow was over and a tingling wind had sprung up that lashed his face as he stood gazing Suddenly he felt something stiff and cold on his lashes and perceived that he had been crying and that the wind had frozen his tears
He thrust his hands in his pockets and walked at a sharp pace down Fifth Avenue to his own house
XXX
That evening when Archer came down before dinner he found the drawingroom empty
He and May were dining alone all the family engagements having been postponed since Mrs Manson Mingotts illness and as May was the more punctual of the two he was surprised that she had not preceded him He knew that she was at home for while he dressed he had heard her moving about in her room and he wondered what had delayed her
He had fallen into the way of dwelling on such conjectures as a means of tying his thoughts fast to reality Sometimes he felt as if he had found the clue to his fatherinlaws absorption in trifles perhaps even Mr Welland long ago had had escapes and visions and had conjured up all the hosts of domesticity to defend himself against them
When May appeared he thought she looked tired She had put on the lownecked and tightlylaced dinnerdress which the Mingott ceremonial exacted on the most informal occasions and had built her fair hair into its usual accumulated coils and her face in contrast was wan and almost faded But she shone on him with her usual tenderness and her eyes had kept the blue dazzle of the day before
What became of you dear she asked I was waiting at Grannys and Ellen came alone and said she had dropped you on the way because you had to rush off on business Theres nothing wrong
Only some letters Id forgotten and wanted to get off before dinner
Ah— she said and a moment afterward Im sorry you didnt come to Grannys—unless the letters were urgent
They were he rejoined surprised at her insistence Besides I dont see why I should have gone to your grandmothers I didnt know you were there
She turned and moved to the lookingglass above the mantelpiece As she stood there lifting her long arm to fasten a puff that had slipped from its place in her intricate hair Archer was struck by something languid and inelastic in her attitude and wondered if the deadly monotony of their lives had laid its weight on her also Then he remembered that as he had left the house that morning she had called over the stairs that she would meet him at her grandmothers so that they might drive home together He had called back a cheery Yes and then absorbed in other visions had forgotten his promise Now he was smitten with compunction yet irritated that so trifling an omission should be stored up against him after nearly two years of marriage He was weary of living in a perpetual tepid honeymoon without the temperature of passion yet with all its exactions If May had spoken out her grievances he suspected her of many he might have laughed them away but she was trained to conceal imaginary wounds under a Spartan smile
To disguise his own annoyance he asked how her grandmother was and she answered that Mrs Mingott was still improving but had been rather disturbed by the last news about the Beauforts
What news
It seems theyre going to stay in New York I believe hes going into an insurance business or something Theyre looking about for a small house
The preposterousness of the case was beyond discussion and they went in to dinner During dinner their talk moved in its usual limited circle but Archer noticed that his wife made no allusion to Madame Olenska nor to old Catherines reception of her He was thankful for the fact yet felt it to be vaguely ominous
They went up to the library for coffee and Archer lit a cigar and took down a volume of Michelet He had taken to history in the evenings since May had shown a tendency to ask him to read aloud whenever she saw him with a volume of poetry not that he disliked the sound of his own voice but because he could always foresee her comments on what he read In the days of their engagement she had simply as he now perceived echoed what he told her but since he had ceased to provide her with opinions she had begun to hazard her own with results destructive to his enjoyment of the works commented on
Seeing that he had chosen history she fetched her workbasket drew up an armchair to the greenshaded student lamp and uncovered a cushion she was embroidering for his sofa She was not a clever needlewoman her large capable hands were made for riding rowing and openair activities but since other wives embroidered cushions for their husbands she did not wish to omit this last link in her devotion
She was so placed that Archer by merely raising his eyes could see her bent above her workframe her ruffled elbowsleeves slipping back from her firm round arms the betrothal sapphire shining on her left hand above her broad gold weddingring and the right hand slowly and laboriously stabbing the canvas As she sat thus the lamplight full on her clear brow he said to himself with a secret dismay that he would always know the thoughts behind it that never in all the years to come would she surprise him by an unexpected mood by a new idea a weakness a cruelty or an emotion She had spent her poetry and romance on their short courting the function was exhausted because the need was past Now she was simply ripening into a copy of her mother and mysteriously by the very process trying to turn him into a Mr Welland He laid down his book and stood up impatiently and at once she raised her head
Whats the matter
The room is stifling I want a little air
He had insisted that the library curtains should draw backward and forward on a rod so that they might be closed in the evening instead of remaining nailed to a gilt cornice and immovably looped up over layers of lace as in the drawingroom and he pulled them back and pushed up the sash leaning out into the icy night The mere fact of not looking at May seated beside his table under his lamp the fact of seeing other houses roofs chimneys of getting the sense of other lives outside his own other cities beyond New York and a whole world beyond his world cleared his brain and made it easier to breathe
After he had leaned out into the darkness for a few minutes he heard her say Newland Do shut the window Youll catch your death
He pulled the sash down and turned back Catch my death he echoed and he felt like adding But Ive caught it already I AM dead—Ive been dead for months and months
And suddenly the play of the word flashed up a wild suggestion What if it were SHE who was dead If she were going to die—to die soon—and leave him free The sensation of standing there in that warm familiar room and looking at her and wishing her dead was so strange so fascinating and overmastering that its enormity did not immediately strike him He simply felt that chance had given him a new possibility to which his sick soul might cling Yes May might die—people did young people healthy people like herself she might die and set him suddenly free
She glanced up and he saw by her widening eyes that there must be something strange in his own
Newland Are you ill
He shook his head and turned toward his armchair She bent over her workframe and as he passed he laid his hand on her hair Poor May he said
Poor Why poor she echoed with a strained laugh
Because I shall never be able to open a window without worrying you he rejoined laughing also
For a moment she was silent then she said very low her head bowed over her work I shall never worry if youre happy
Ah my dear and I shall never be happy unless I can open the windows
In THIS weather she remonstrated and with a sigh he buried his head in his book
Six or seven days passed Archer heard nothing from Madame Olenska and became aware that her name would not be mentioned in his presence by any member of the family He did not try to see her to do so while she was at old Catherines guarded bedside would have been almost impossible In the uncertainty of the situation he let himself drift conscious somewhere below the surface of his thoughts of a resolve which had come to him when he had leaned out from his library window into the icy night The strength of that resolve made it easy to wait and make no sign
Then one day May told him that Mrs Manson Mingott had asked to see him There was nothing surprising in the request for the old lady was steadily recovering and she had always openly declared that she preferred Archer to any of her other grandsonsinlaw May gave the message with evident pleasure she was proud of old Catherines appreciation of her husband
There was a moments pause and then Archer felt it incumbent on him to say All right Shall we go together this afternoon
His wifes face brightened but she instantly answered Oh youd much better go alone It bores Granny to see the same people too often
Archers heart was beating violently when he rang old Mrs Mingotts bell He had wanted above all things to go alone for he felt sure the visit would give him the chance of saying a word in private to the Countess Olenska He had determined to wait till the chance presented itself naturally and here it was and here he was on the doorstep Behind the door behind the curtains of the yellow damask room next to the hall she was surely awaiting him in another moment he should see her and be able to speak to her before she led him to the sickroom
He wanted only to put one question after that his course would be clear What he wished to ask was simply the date of her return to Washington and that question she could hardly refuse to answer
But in the yellow sittingroom it was the mulatto maid who waited Her white teeth shining like a keyboard she pushed back the sliding doors and ushered him into old Catherines presence
The old woman sat in a vast thronelike armchair near her bed Beside her was a mahogany stand bearing a cast bronze lamp with an engraved globe over which a green paper shade had been balanced There was not a book or a newspaper in reach nor any evidence of feminine employment conversation had always been Mrs Mingotts sole pursuit and she would have scorned to feign an interest in fancywork
Archer saw no trace of the slight distortion left by her stroke She merely looked paler with darker shadows in the folds and recesses of her obesity and in the fluted mobcap tied by a starched bow between her first two chins and the muslin kerchief crossed over her billowing purple dressinggown she seemed like some shrewd and kindly ancestress of her own who might have yielded too freely to the pleasures of the table
She held out one of the little hands that nestled in a hollow of her huge lap like pet animals and called to the maid Dont let in any one else If my daughters call say Im asleep
The maid disappeared and the old lady turned to her grandson
My dear am I perfectly hideous she asked gaily launching out one hand in search of the folds of muslin on her inaccessible bosom My daughters tell me it doesnt matter at my age—as if hideousness didnt matter all the more the harder it gets to conceal
My dear youre handsomer than ever Archer rejoined in the same tone and she threw back her head and laughed
Ah but not as handsome as Ellen she jerked out twinkling at him maliciously and before he could answer she added Was she so awfully handsome the day you drove her up from the ferry
He laughed and she continued Was it because you told her so that she had to put you out on the way In my youth young men didnt desert pretty women unless they were made to She gave another chuckle and interrupted it to say almost querulously Its a pity she didnt marry you I always told her so It would have spared me all this worry But who ever thought of sparing their grandmother worry
Archer wondered if her illness had blurred her faculties but suddenly she broke out Well its settled anyhow shes going to stay with me whatever the rest of the family say She hadnt been here five minutes before Id have gone down on my knees to keep her—if only for the last twenty years Id been able to see where the floor was
Archer listened in silence and she went on Theyd talked me over as no doubt you know persuaded me Lovell and Letterblair and Augusta Welland and all the rest of them that I must hold out and cut off her allowance till she was made to see that it was her duty to go back to Olenski They thought theyd convinced me when the secretary or whatever he was came out with the last proposals handsome proposals I confess they were After all marriage is marriage and moneys money—both useful things in their way and I didnt know what to answer— She broke off and drew a long breath as if speaking had become an effort But the minute I laid eyes on her I said You sweet bird you Shut you up in that cage again Never And now its settled that shes to stay here and nurse her Granny as long as theres a Granny to nurse Its not a gay prospect but she doesnt mind and of course Ive told Letterblair that shes to be given her proper allowance
The young man heard her with veins aglow but in his confusion of mind he hardly knew whether her news brought joy or pain He had so definitely decided on the course he meant to pursue that for the moment he could not readjust his thoughts But gradually there stole over him the delicious sense of difficulties deferred and opportunities miraculously provided If Ellen had consented to come and live with her grandmother it must surely be because she had recognised the impossibility of giving him up This was her answer to his final appeal of the other day if she would not take the extreme step he had urged she had at last yielded to halfmeasures He sank back into the thought with the involuntary relief of a man who has been ready to risk everything and suddenly tastes the dangerous sweetness of security
She couldnt have gone back—it was impossible he exclaimed
Ah my dear I always knew you were on her side and thats why I sent for you today and why I said to your pretty wife when she proposed to come with you No my dear Im pining to see Newland and I dont want anybody to share our transports For you see my dear— she drew her head back as far as its tethering chins permitted and looked him full in the eyes—you see we shall have a fight yet The family dont want her here and theyll say its because Ive been ill because Im a weak old woman that shes persuaded me Im not well enough yet to fight them one by one and youve got to do it for me
I he stammered
You Why not she jerked back at him her round eyes suddenly as sharp as penknives Her hand fluttered from its chairarm and lit on his with a clutch of little pale nails like birdclaws Why not she searchingly repeated
Archer under the exposure of her gaze had recovered his selfpossession
Oh I dont count—Im too insignificant
Well youre Letterblairs partner aint you Youve got to get at them through Letterblair Unless youve got a reason she insisted
Oh my dear I back you to hold your own against them all without my help but you shall have it if you need it he reassured her
Then were safe she sighed and smiling on him with all her ancient cunning she added as she settled her head among the cushions I always knew youd back us up because they never quote you when they talk about its being her duty to go home
He winced a little at her terrifying perspicacity and longed to ask And May—do they quote her But he judged it safer to turn the question
And Madame Olenska When am I to see her he said
The old lady chuckled crumpled her lids and went through the pantomime of archness Not today One at a time please Madame Olenskas gone out
He flushed with disappointment and she went on Shes gone out my child gone in my carriage to see Regina Beaufort
She paused for this announcement to produce its effect Thats what shes reduced me to already The day after she got here she put on her best bonnet and told me as cool as a cucumber that she was going to call on Regina Beaufort I dont know her who is she says I Shes your grandniece and a most unhappy woman she says Shes the wife of a scoundrel I answered Well she says and so am I and yet all my family want me to go back to him Well that floored me and I let her go and finally one day she said it was raining too hard to go out on foot and she wanted me to lend her my carriage What for I asked her and she said To go and see cousin Regina—COUSIN Now my dear I looked out of the window and saw it wasnt raining a drop but I understood her and I let her have the carriage After all Reginas a brave woman and so is she and Ive always liked courage above everything
Archer bent down and pressed his lips on the little hand that still lay on his
Eh—eh—eh Whose hand did you think you were kissing young man—your wifes I hope the old lady snapped out with her mocking cackle and as he rose to go she called out after him Give her her Grannys love but youd better not say anything about our talk
XXXI
Archer had been stunned by old Catherines news It was only natural that Madame Olenska should have hastened from Washington in response to her grandmothers summons but that she should have decided to remain under her roof—especially now that Mrs Mingott had almost regained her health—was less easy to explain
Archer was sure that Madame Olenskas decision had not been influenced by the change in her financial situation He knew the exact figure of the small income which her husband had allowed her at their separation Without the addition of her grandmothers allowance it was hardly enough to live on in any sense known to the Mingott vocabulary and now that Medora Manson who shared her life had been ruined such a pittance would barely keep the two women clothed and fed Yet Archer was convinced that Madame Olenska had not accepted her grandmothers offer from interested motives
She had the heedless generosity and the spasmodic extravagance of persons used to large fortunes and indifferent to money but she could go without many things which her relations considered indispensable and Mrs Lovell Mingott and Mrs Welland had often been heard to deplore that any one who had enjoyed the cosmopolitan luxuries of Count Olenskis establishments should care so little about how things were done Moreover as Archer knew several months had passed since her allowance had been cut off yet in the interval she had made no effort to regain her grandmothers favour Therefore if she had changed her course it must be for a different reason
He did not have far to seek for that reason On the way from the ferry she had told him that he and she must remain apart but she had said it with her head on his breast He knew that there was no calculated coquetry in her words she was fighting her fate as he had fought his and clinging desperately to her resolve that they should not break faith with the people who trusted them But during the ten days which had elapsed since her return to New York she had perhaps guessed from his silence and from the fact of his making no attempt to see her that he was meditating a decisive step a step from which there was no turning back At the thought a sudden fear of her own weakness might have seized her and she might have felt that after all it was better to accept the compromise usual in such cases and follow the line of least resistance
An hour earlier when he had rung Mrs Mingotts bell Archer had fancied that his path was clear before him He had meant to have a word alone with Madame Olenska and failing that to learn from her grandmother on what day and by which train she was returning to Washington In that train he intended to join her and travel with her to Washington or as much farther as she was willing to go His own fancy inclined to Japan At any rate she would understand at once that wherever she went he was going He meant to leave a note for May that should cut off any other alternative
He had fancied himself not only nerved for this plunge but eager to take it yet his first feeling on hearing that the course of events was changed had been one of relief Now however as he walked home from Mrs Mingotts he was conscious of a growing distaste for what lay before him There was nothing unknown or unfamiliar in the path he was presumably to tread but when he had trodden it before it was as a free man who was accountable to no one for his actions and could lend himself with an amused detachment to the game of precautions and prevarications concealments and compliances that the part required This procedure was called protecting a womans honour and the best fiction combined with the afterdinner talk of his elders had long since initiated him into every detail of its code
Now he saw the matter in a new light and his part in it seemed singularly diminished It was in fact that which with a secret fatuity he had watched Mrs Thorley Rushworth play toward a fond and unperceiving husband a smiling bantering humouring watchful and incessant lie A lie by day a lie by night a lie in every touch and every look a lie in every caress and every quarrel a lie in every word and in every silence
It was easier and less dastardly on the whole for a wife to play such a part toward her husband A womans standard of truthfulness was tacitly held to be lower she was the subject creature and versed in the arts of the enslaved Then she could always plead moods and nerves and the right not to be held too strictly to account and even in the most straitlaced societies the laugh was always against the husband
But in Archers little world no one laughed at a wife deceived and a certain measure of contempt was attached to men who continued their philandering after marriage In the rotation of crops there was a recognised season for wild oats but they were not to be sown more than once
Archer had always shared this view in his heart he thought Lefferts despicable But to love Ellen Olenska was not to become a man like Lefferts for the first time Archer found himself face to face with the dread argument of the individual case Ellen Olenska was like no other woman he was like no other man their situation therefore resembled no one elses and they were answerable to no tribunal but that of their own judgment
Yes but in ten minutes more he would be mounting his own doorstep and there were May and habit and honour and all the old decencies that he and his people had always believed in
At his corner he hesitated and then walked on down Fifth Avenue
Ahead of him in the winter night loomed a big unlit house As he drew near he thought how often he had seen it blazing with lights its steps awninged and carpeted and carriages waiting in double line to draw up at the curbstone It was in the conservatory that stretched its deadblack bulk down the side street that he had taken his first kiss from May it was under the myriad candles of the ballroom that he had seen her appear tall and silvershining as a young Diana
Now the house was as dark as the grave except for a faint flare of gas in the basement and a light in one upstairs room where the blind had not been lowered As Archer reached the corner he saw that the carriage standing at the door was Mrs Manson Mingotts What an opportunity for Sillerton Jackson if he should chance to pass Archer had been greatly moved by old Catherines account of Madame Olenskas attitude toward Mrs Beaufort it made the righteous reprobation of New York seem like a passing by on the other side But he knew well enough what construction the clubs and drawingrooms would put on Ellen Olenskas visits to her cousin
He paused and looked up at the lighted window No doubt the two women were sitting together in that room Beaufort had probably sought consolation elsewhere There were even rumours that he had left New York with Fanny Ring but Mrs Beauforts attitude made the report seem improbable
Archer had the nocturnal perspective of Fifth Avenue almost to himself At that hour most people were indoors dressing for dinner and he was secretly glad that Ellens exit was likely to be unobserved As the thought passed through his mind the door opened and she came out Behind her was a faint light such as might have been carried down the stairs to show her the way She turned to say a word to some one then the door closed and she came down the steps
Ellen he said in a low voice as she reached the pavement
She stopped with a slight start and just then he saw two young men of fashionable cut approaching There was a familiar air about their overcoats and the way their smart silk mufflers were folded over their white ties and he wondered how youths of their quality happened to be dining out so early Then he remembered that the Reggie Chiverses whose house was a few doors above were taking a large party that evening to see Adelaide Neilson in Romeo and Juliet and guessed that the two were of the number They passed under a lamp and he recognised Lawrence Lefferts and a young Chivers
A mean desire not to have Madame Olenska seen at the Beauforts door vanished as he felt the penetrating warmth of her hand
I shall see you now—we shall be together he broke out hardly knowing what he said
Ah she answered Granny has told you
While he watched her he was aware that Lefferts and Chivers on reaching the farther side of the street corner had discreetly struck away across Fifth Avenue It was the kind of masculine solidarity that he himself often practised now he sickened at their connivance Did she really imagine that he and she could live like this And if not what else did she imagine
Tomorrow I must see you—somewhere where we can be alone he said in a voice that sounded almost angry to his own ears
She wavered and moved toward the carriage
But I shall be at Grannys—for the present that is she added as if conscious that her change of plans required some explanation
Somewhere where we can be alone he insisted
She gave a faint laugh that grated on him
In New York But there are no churches no monuments
Theres the Art Museum—in the Park he explained as she looked puzzled At halfpast two I shall be at the door
She turned away without answering and got quickly into the carriage As it drove off she leaned forward and he thought she waved her hand in the obscurity He stared after her in a turmoil of contradictory feelings It seemed to him that he had been speaking not to the woman he loved but to another a woman he was indebted to for pleasures already wearied of it was hateful to find himself the prisoner of this hackneyed vocabulary
Shell come he said to himself almost contemptuously
Avoiding the popular Wolfe collection whose anecdotic canvases filled one of the main galleries of the queer wilderness of castiron and encaustic tiles known as the Metropolitan Museum they had wandered down a passage to the room where the Cesnola antiquities mouldered in unvisited loneliness
They had this melancholy retreat to themselves and seated on the divan enclosing the central steamradiator they were staring silently at the glass cabinets mounted in ebonised wood which contained the recovered fragments of Ilium
Its odd Madame Olenska said I never came here before
Ah well— Some day I suppose it will be a great Museum
Yes she assented absently
She stood up and wandered across the room Archer remaining seated watched the light movements of her figure so girlish even under its heavy furs the cleverly planted heron wing in her fur cap and the way a dark curl lay like a flattened vine spiral on each cheek above the ear His mind as always when they first met was wholly absorbed in the delicious details that made her herself and no other Presently he rose and approached the case before which she stood Its glass shelves were crowded with small broken objects—hardly recognisable domestic utensils ornaments and personal trifles—made of glass of clay of discoloured bronze and other timeblurred substances
It seems cruel she said that after a while nothing matters any more than these little things that used to be necessary and important to forgotten people and now have to be guessed at under a magnifying glass and labelled Use unknown
Yes but meanwhile—
Ah meanwhile—
As she stood there in her long sealskin coat her hands thrust in a small round muff her veil drawn down like a transparent mask to the tip of her nose and the bunch of violets he had brought her stirring with her quicklytaken breath it seemed incredible that this pure harmony of line and colour should ever suffer the stupid law of change
Meanwhile everything matters—that concerns you he said
She looked at him thoughtfully and turned back to the divan He sat down beside her and waited but suddenly he heard a step echoing far off down the empty rooms and felt the pressure of the minutes
What is it you wanted to tell me she asked as if she had received the same warning
What I wanted to tell you he rejoined Why that I believe you came to New York because you were afraid
Afraid
Of my coming to Washington
She looked down at her muff and he saw her hands stir in it uneasily
Well—
Well—yes she said
You WERE afraid You knew—
Yes I knew
Well then he insisted
Well then this is better isnt it she returned with a long questioning sigh
Better—
We shall hurt others less Isnt it after all what you always wanted
To have you here you mean—in reach and yet out of reach To meet you in this way on the sly Its the very reverse of what I want I told you the other day what I wanted
She hesitated And you still think this—worse
A thousand times He paused It would be easy to lie to you but the truth is I think it detestable
Oh so do I she cried with a deep breath of relief
He sprang up impatiently Well then—its my turn to ask what is it in Gods name that you think better
She hung her head and continued to clasp and unclasp her hands in her muff The step drew nearer and a guardian in a braided cap walked listlessly through the room like a ghost stalking through a necropolis They fixed their eyes simultaneously on the case opposite them and when the official figure had vanished down a vista of mummies and sarcophagi Archer spoke again
What do you think better
Instead of answering she murmured I promised Granny to stay with her because it seemed to me that here I should be safer
From me
She bent her head slightly without looking at him
Safer from loving me
Her profile did not stir but he saw a tear overflow on her lashes and hang in a mesh of her veil
Safer from doing irreparable harm Dont let us be like all the others she protested
What others I dont profess to be different from my kind Im consumed by the same wants and the same longings
She glanced at him with a kind of terror and he saw a faint colour steal into her cheeks
Shall I—once come to you and then go home she suddenly hazarded in a low clear voice
The blood rushed to the young mans forehead Dearest he said without moving It seemed as if he held his heart in his hands like a full cup that the least motion might overbrim
Then her last phrase struck his ear and his face clouded Go home What do you mean by going home
Home to my husband
And you expect me to say yes to that
She raised her troubled eyes to his What else is there I cant stay here and lie to the people whove been good to me
But thats the very reason why I ask you to come away
And destroy their lives when theyve helped me to remake mine
Archer sprang to his feet and stood looking down on her in inarticulate despair It would have been easy to say Yes come come once He knew the power she would put in his hands if she consented there would be no difficulty then in persuading her not to go back to her husband
But something silenced the word on his lips A sort of passionate honesty in her made it inconceivable that he should try to draw her into that familiar trap If I were to let her come he said to himself I should have to let her go again And that was not to be imagined
But he saw the shadow of the lashes on her wet cheek and wavered
After all he began again we have lives of our own Theres no use attempting the impossible Youre so unprejudiced about some things so used as you say to looking at the Gorgon that I dont know why youre afraid to face our case and see it as it really is—unless you think the sacrifice is not worth making
She stood up also her lips tightening under a rapid frown
Call it that then—I must go she said drawing her little watch from her bosom
She turned away and he followed and caught her by the wrist Well then come to me once he said his head turning suddenly at the thought of losing her and for a second or two they looked at each other almost like enemies
When he insisted Tomorrow
She hesitated The day after
Dearest— he said again
She had disengaged her wrist but for a moment they continued to hold each others eyes and he saw that her face which had grown very pale was flooded with a deep inner radiance His heart beat with awe he felt that he had never before beheld love visible
Oh I shall be late—goodbye No dont come any farther than this she cried walking hurriedly away down the long room as if the reflected radiance in his eyes had frightened her When she reached the door she turned for a moment to wave a quick farewell
Archer walked home alone Darkness was falling when he let himself into his house and he looked about at the familiar objects in the hall as if he viewed them from the other side of the grave
The parlourmaid hearing his step ran up the stairs to light the gas on the upper landing
Is Mrs Archer in
No sir Mrs Archer went out in the carriage after luncheon and hasnt come back
With a sense of relief he entered the library and flung himself down in his armchair The parlourmaid followed bringing the student lamp and shaking some coals onto the dying fire When she left he continued to sit motionless his elbows on his knees his chin on his clasped hands his eyes fixed on the red grate
He sat there without conscious thoughts without sense of the lapse of time in a deep and grave amazement that seemed to suspend life rather than quicken it This was what had to be then this was what had to be he kept repeating to himself as if he hung in the clutch of doom What he had dreamed of had been so different that there was a mortal chill in his rapture
The door opened and May came in
Im dreadfully late—you werent worried were you she asked laying her hand on his shoulder with one of her rare caresses
He looked up astonished Is it late
After seven I believe youve been asleep She laughed and drawing out her hat pins tossed her velvet hat on the sofa She looked paler than usual but sparkling with an unwonted animation
I went to see Granny and just as I was going away Ellen came in from a walk so I stayed and had a long talk with her It was ages since wed had a real talk She had dropped into her usual armchair facing his and was running her fingers through her rumpled hair He fancied she expected him to speak
A really good talk she went on smiling with what seemed to Archer an unnatural vividness She was so dear—just like the old Ellen Im afraid I havent been fair to her lately Ive sometimes thought—
Archer stood up and leaned against the mantelpiece out of the radius of the lamp
Yes youve thought— he echoed as she paused
Well perhaps I havent judged her fairly Shes so different—at least on the surface She takes up such odd people—she seems to like to make herself conspicuous I suppose its the life shes led in that fast European society no doubt we seem dreadfully dull to her But I dont want to judge her unfairly
She paused again a little breathless with the unwonted length of her speech and sat with her lips slightly parted and a deep blush on her cheeks
Archer as he looked at her was reminded of the glow which had suffused her face in the Mission Garden at St Augustine He became aware of the same obscure effort in her the same reaching out toward something beyond the usual range of her vision
She hates Ellen he thought and shes trying to overcome the feeling and to get me to help her to overcome it
The thought moved him and for a moment he was on the point of breaking the silence between them and throwing himself on her mercy
You understand dont you she went on why the family have sometimes been annoyed We all did what we could for her at first but she never seemed to understand And now this idea of going to see Mrs Beaufort of going there in Grannys carriage Im afraid shes quite alienated the van der Luydens
Ah said Archer with an impatient laugh The open door had closed between them again
Its time to dress were dining out arent we he asked moving from the fire
She rose also but lingered near the hearth As he walked past her she moved forward impulsively as though to detain him their eyes met and he saw that hers were of the same swimming blue as when he had left her to drive to Jersey City
She flung her arms about his neck and pressed her cheek to his
You havent kissed me today she said in a whisper and he felt her tremble in his arms
XXXII
At the court of the Tuileries said Mr Sillerton Jackson with his reminiscent smile such things were pretty openly tolerated
The scene was the van der Luydens black walnut diningroom in Madison Avenue and the time the evening after Newland Archers visit to the Museum of Art Mr and Mrs van der Luyden had come to town for a few days from Skuytercliff whither they had precipitately fled at the announcement of Beauforts failure It had been represented to them that the disarray into which society had been thrown by this deplorable affair made their presence in town more necessary than ever It was one of the occasions when as Mrs Archer put it they owed it to society to show themselves at the Opera and even to open their own doors
It will never do my dear Louisa to let people like Mrs Lemuel Struthers think they can step into Reginas shoes It is just at such times that new people push in and get a footing It was owing to the epidemic of chickenpox in New York the winter Mrs Struthers first appeared that the married men slipped away to her house while their wives were in the nursery You and dear Henry Louisa must stand in the breach as you always have
Mr and Mrs van der Luyden could not remain deaf to such a call and reluctantly but heroically they had come to town unmuffled the house and sent out invitations for two dinners and an evening reception
On this particular evening they had invited Sillerton Jackson Mrs Archer and Newland and his wife to go with them to the Opera where Faust was being sung for the first time that winter Nothing was done without ceremony under the van der Luyden roof and though there were but four guests the repast had begun at seven punctually so that the proper sequence of courses might be served without haste before the gentlemen settled down to their cigars
Archer had not seen his wife since the evening before He had left early for the office where he had plunged into an accumulation of unimportant business In the afternoon one of the senior partners had made an unexpected call on his time and he had reached home so late that May had preceded him to the van der Luydens and sent back the carriage
Now across the Skuytercliff carnations and the massive plate she struck him as pale and languid but her eyes shone and she talked with exaggerated animation
The subject which had called forth Mr Sillerton Jacksons favourite allusion had been brought up Archer fancied not without intention by their hostess The Beaufort failure or rather the Beaufort attitude since the failure was still a fruitful theme for the drawingroom moralist and after it had been thoroughly examined and condemned Mrs van der Luyden had turned her scrupulous eyes on May Archer
Is it possible dear that what I hear is true I was told your grandmother Mingotts carriage was seen standing at Mrs Beauforts door It was noticeable that she no longer called the offending lady by her Christian name
Mays colour rose and Mrs Archer put in hastily If it was Im convinced it was there without Mrs Mingotts knowledge
Ah you think— Mrs van der Luyden paused sighed and glanced at her husband
Im afraid Mr van der Luyden said that Madame Olenskas kind heart may have led her into the imprudence of calling on Mrs Beaufort
Or her taste for peculiar people put in Mrs Archer in a dry tone while her eyes dwelt innocently on her sons
Im sorry to think it of Madame Olenska said Mrs van der Luyden and Mrs Archer murmured Ah my dear—and after youd had her twice at Skuytercliff
It was at this point that Mr Jackson seized the chance to place his favourite allusion
At the Tuileries he repeated seeing the eyes of the company expectantly turned on him the standard was excessively lax in some respects and if youd asked where Mornys money came from— Or who paid the debts of some of the Court beauties
I hope dear Sillerton said Mrs Archer you are not suggesting that we should adopt such standards
I never suggest returned Mr Jackson imperturbably But Madame Olenskas foreign bringingup may make her less particular—
Ah the two elder ladies sighed
Still to have kept her grandmothers carriage at a defaulters door Mr van der Luyden protested and Archer guessed that he was remembering and resenting the hampers of carnations he had sent to the little house in Twentythird Street
Of course Ive always said that she looks at things quite differently Mrs Archer summed up
A flush rose to Mays forehead She looked across the table at her husband and said precipitately Im sure Ellen meant it kindly
Imprudent people are often kind said Mrs Archer as if the fact were scarcely an extenuation and Mrs van der Luyden murmured If only she had consulted some one—
Ah that she never did Mrs Archer rejoined
At this point Mr van der Luyden glanced at his wife who bent her head slightly in the direction of Mrs Archer and the glimmering trains of the three ladies swept out of the door while the gentlemen settled down to their cigars Mr van der Luyden supplied short ones on Opera nights but they were so good that they made his guests deplore his inexorable punctuality
Archer after the first act had detached himself from the party and made his way to the back of the club box From there he watched over various Chivers Mingott and Rushworth shoulders the same scene that he had looked at two years previously on the night of his first meeting with Ellen Olenska He had halfexpected her to appear again in old Mrs Mingotts box but it remained empty and he sat motionless his eyes fastened on it till suddenly Madame Nilssons pure soprano broke out into Mama non mama
Archer turned to the stage where in the familiar setting of giant roses and penwiper pansies the same large blonde victim was succumbing to the same small brown seducer
From the stage his eyes wandered to the point of the horseshoe where May sat between two older ladies just as on that former evening she had sat between Mrs Lovell Mingott and her newlyarrived foreign cousin As on that evening she was all in white and Archer who had not noticed what she wore recognised the bluewhite satin and old lace of her wedding dress
It was the custom in old New York for brides to appear in this costly garment during the first year or two of marriage his mother he knew kept hers in tissue paper in the hope that Janey might some day wear it though poor Janey was reaching the age when pearl grey poplin and no bridesmaids would be thought more appropriate
It struck Archer that May since their return from Europe had seldom worn her bridal satin and the surprise of seeing her in it made him compare her appearance with that of the young girl he had watched with such blissful anticipations two years earlier
Though Mays outline was slightly heavier as her goddesslike build had foretold her athletic erectness of carriage and the girlish transparency of her expression remained unchanged but for the slight languor that Archer had lately noticed in her she would have been the exact image of the girl playing with the bouquet of liliesofthevalley on her betrothal evening The fact seemed an additional appeal to his pity such innocence was as moving as the trustful clasp of a child Then he remembered the passionate generosity latent under that incurious calm He recalled her glance of understanding when he had urged that their engagement should be announced at the Beaufort ball he heard the voice in which she had said in the Mission garden I couldnt have my happiness made out of a wrong—a wrong to some one else and an uncontrollable longing seized him to tell her the truth to throw himself on her generosity and ask for the freedom he had once refused
Newland Archer was a quiet and selfcontrolled young man Conformity to the discipline of a small society had become almost his second nature It was deeply distasteful to him to do anything melodramatic and conspicuous anything Mr van der Luyden would have deprecated and the club box condemned as bad form But he had become suddenly unconscious of the club box of Mr van der Luyden of all that had so long enclosed him in the warm shelter of habit He walked along the semicircular passage at the back of the house and opened the door of Mrs van der Luydens box as if it had been a gate into the unknown
Mama thrilled out the triumphant Marguerite and the occupants of the box looked up in surprise at Archers entrance He had already broken one of the rules of his world which forbade the entering of a box during a solo
Slipping between Mr van der Luyden and Sillerton Jackson he leaned over his wife
Ive got a beastly headache dont tell any one but come home wont you he whispered
May gave him a glance of comprehension and he saw her whisper to his mother who nodded sympathetically then she murmured an excuse to Mrs van der Luyden and rose from her seat just as Marguerite fell into Fausts arms Archer while he helped her on with her Opera cloak noticed the exchange of a significant smile between the older ladies
As they drove away May laid her hand shyly on his Im so sorry you dont feel well Im afraid theyve been overworking you again at the office
No—its not that do you mind if I open the window he returned confusedly letting down the pane on his side He sat staring out into the street feeling his wife beside him as a silent watchful interrogation and keeping his eyes steadily fixed on the passing houses At their door she caught her skirt in the step of the carriage and fell against him
Did you hurt yourself he asked steadying her with his arm
No but my poor dress—see how Ive torn it she exclaimed She bent to gather up a mudstained breadth and followed him up the steps into the hall The servants had not expected them so early and there was only a glimmer of gas on the upper landing
Archer mounted the stairs turned up the light and put a match to the brackets on each side of the library mantelpiece The curtains were drawn and the warm friendly aspect of the room smote him like that of a familiar face met during an unavowable errand
He noticed that his wife was very pale and asked if he should get her some brandy
Oh no she exclaimed with a momentary flush as she took off her cloak But hadnt you better go to bed at once she added as he opened a silver box on the table and took out a cigarette
Archer threw down the cigarette and walked to his usual place by the fire
No my head is not as bad as that He paused And theres something I want to say something important—that I must tell you at once
She had dropped into an armchair and raised her head as he spoke Yes dear she rejoined so gently that he wondered at the lack of wonder with which she received this preamble
May— he began standing a few feet from her chair and looking over at her as if the slight distance between them were an unbridgeable abyss The sound of his voice echoed uncannily through the homelike hush and he repeated There is something Ive got to tell you about myself
She sat silent without a movement or a tremor of her lashes She was still extremely pale but her face had a curious tranquillity of expression that seemed drawn from some secret inner source
Archer checked the conventional phrases of selfaccusal that were crowding to his lips He was determined to put the case baldly without vain recrimination or excuse
Madame Olenska— he said but at the name his wife raised her hand as if to silence him As she did so the gaslight struck on the gold of her weddingring
Oh why should we talk about Ellen tonight she asked with a slight pout of impatience
Because I ought to have spoken before
Her face remained calm Is it really worth while dear I know Ive been unfair to her at times—perhaps we all have Youve understood her no doubt better than we did youve always been kind to her But what does it matter now its all over
Archer looked at her blankly Could it be possible that the sense of unreality in which he felt himself imprisoned had communicated itself to his wife
All over—what do you mean he asked in an indistinct stammer
May still looked at him with transparent eyes Why—since shes going back to Europe so soon since Granny approves and understands and has arranged to make her independent of her husband—
She broke off and Archer grasping the corner of the mantelpiece in one convulsed hand and steadying himself against it made a vain effort to extend the same control to his reeling thoughts
I supposed he heard his wifes even voice go on that you had been kept at the office this evening about the business arrangements It was settled this morning I believe She lowered her eyes under his unseeing stare and another fugitive flush passed over her face
He understood that his own eyes must be unbearable and turning away rested his elbows on the mantelshelf and covered his face Something drummed and clanged furiously in his ears he could not tell if it were the blood in his veins or the tick of the clock on the mantel
May sat without moving or speaking while the clock slowly measured out five minutes A lump of coal fell forward in the grate and hearing her rise to push it back Archer at length turned and faced her
Its impossible he exclaimed
Impossible—
How do you know—what youve just told me
I saw Ellen yesterday—I told you Id seen her at Grannys
It wasnt then that she told you
No I had a note from her this afternoon—Do you want to see it
He could not find his voice and she went out of the room and came back almost immediately
I thought you knew she said simply
She laid a sheet of paper on the table and Archer put out his hand and took it up The letter contained only a few lines
May dear I have at last made Granny understand that my visit to her could be no more than a visit and she has been as kind and generous as ever She sees now that if I return to Europe I must live by myself or rather with poor Aunt Medora who is coming with me I am hurrying back to Washington to pack up and we sail next week You must be very good to Granny when Im gone—as good as youve always been to me Ellen
If any of my friends wish to urge me to change my mind please tell them it would be utterly useless
Archer read the letter over two or three times then he flung it down and burst out laughing
The sound of his laugh startled him It recalled Janeys midnight fright when she had caught him rocking with incomprehensible mirth over Mays telegram announcing that the date of their marriage had been advanced
Why did she write this he asked checking his laugh with a supreme effort
May met the question with her unshaken candour I suppose because we talked things over yesterday—
What things
I told her I was afraid I hadnt been fair to her—hadnt always understood how hard it must have been for her here alone among so many people who were relations and yet strangers who felt the right to criticise and yet didnt always know the circumstances She paused I knew youd been the one friend she could always count on and I wanted her to know that you and I were the same—in all our feelings
She hesitated as if waiting for him to speak and then added slowly She understood my wishing to tell her this I think she understands everything
She went up to Archer and taking one of his cold hands pressed it quickly against her cheek
My head aches too goodnight dear she said and turned to the door her torn and muddy weddingdress dragging after her across the room
XXXIII
It was as Mrs Archer smilingly said to Mrs Welland a great event for a young couple to give their first big dinner
The Newland Archers since they had set up their household had received a good deal of company in an informal way Archer was fond of having three or four friends to dine and May welcomed them with the beaming readiness of which her mother had set her the example in conjugal affairs Her husband questioned whether if left to herself she would ever have asked any one to the house but he had long given up trying to disengage her real self from the shape into which tradition and training had moulded her It was expected that welloff young couples in New York should do a good deal of informal entertaining and a Welland married to an Archer was doubly pledged to the tradition
But a big dinner with a hired chef and two borrowed footmen with Roman punch roses from Hendersons and menus on giltedged cards was a different affair and not to be lightly undertaken As Mrs Archer remarked the Roman punch made all the difference not in itself but by its manifold implications—since it signified either canvasbacks or terrapin two soups a hot and a cold sweet full decolletage with short sleeves and guests of a proportionate importance
It was always an interesting occasion when a young pair launched their first invitations in the third person and their summons was seldom refused even by the seasoned and soughtafter Still it was admittedly a triumph that the van der Luydens at Mays request should have stayed over in order to be present at her farewell dinner for the Countess Olenska
The two mothersinlaw sat in Mays drawingroom on the afternoon of the great day Mrs Archer writing out the menus on Tiffanys thickest giltedged bristol while Mrs Welland superintended the placing of the palms and standard lamps
Archer arriving late from his office found them still there Mrs Archer had turned her attention to the namecards for the table and Mrs Welland was considering the effect of bringing forward the large gilt sofa so that another corner might be created between the piano and the window
May they told him was in the diningroom inspecting the mound of Jacqueminot roses and maidenhair in the centre of the long table and the placing of the Maillard bonbons in openwork silver baskets between the candelabra On the piano stood a large basket of orchids which Mr van der Luyden had had sent from Skuytercliff Everything was in short as it should be on the approach of so considerable an event
Mrs Archer ran thoughtfully over the list checking off each name with her sharp gold pen
Henry van der Luyden—Louisa—the Lovell Mingotts—the Reggie Chiverses—Lawrence Lefferts and Gertrude—yes I suppose May was right to have them—the Selfridge Merrys Sillerton Jackson Van Newland and his wife How time passes It seems only yesterday that he was your best man Newland—and Countess Olenska—yes I think thats all
Mrs Welland surveyed her soninlaw affectionately No one can say Newland that you and May are not giving Ellen a handsome sendoff
Ah well said Mrs Archer I understand Mays wanting her cousin to tell people abroad that were not quite barbarians
Im sure Ellen will appreciate it She was to arrive this morning I believe It will make a most charming last impression The evening before sailing is usually so dreary Mrs Welland cheerfully continued
Archer turned toward the door and his motherinlaw called to him Do go in and have a peep at the table And dont let May tire herself too much But he affected not to hear and sprang up the stairs to his library The room looked at him like an alien countenance composed into a polite grimace and he perceived that it had been ruthlessly tidied and prepared by a judicious distribution of ashtrays and cedarwood boxes for the gentlemen to smoke in
Ah well he thought its not for long— and he went on to his dressingroom
Ten days had passed since Madame Olenskas departure from New York During those ten days Archer had had no sign from her but that conveyed by the return of a key wrapped in tissue paper and sent to his office in a sealed envelope addressed in her hand This retort to his last appeal might have been interpreted as a classic move in a familiar game but the young man chose to give it a different meaning She was still fighting against her fate but she was going to Europe and she was not returning to her husband Nothing therefore was to prevent his following her and once he had taken the irrevocable step and had proved to her that it was irrevocable he believed she would not send him away
This confidence in the future had steadied him to play his part in the present It had kept him from writing to her or betraying by any sign or act his misery and mortification It seemed to him that in the deadly silent game between them the trumps were still in his hands and he waited
There had been nevertheless moments sufficiently difficult to pass as when Mr Letterblair the day after Madame Olenskas departure had sent for him to go over the details of the trust which Mrs Manson Mingott wished to create for her granddaughter For a couple of hours Archer had examined the terms of the deed with his senior all the while obscurely feeling that if he had been consulted it was for some reason other than the obvious one of his cousinship and that the close of the conference would reveal it
Well the lady cant deny that its a handsome arrangement Mr Letterblair had summed up after mumbling over a summary of the settlement In fact Im bound to say shes been treated pretty handsomely all round
All round Archer echoed with a touch of derision Do you refer to her husbands proposal to give her back her own money
Mr Letterblairs bushy eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch My dear sir the laws the law and your wifes cousin was married under the French law Its to be presumed she knew what that meant
Even if she did what happened subsequently— But Archer paused Mr Letterblair had laid his penhandle against his big corrugated nose and was looking down it with the expression assumed by virtuous elderly gentlemen when they wish their youngers to understand that virtue is not synonymous with ignorance
My dear sir Ive no wish to extenuate the Counts transgressions but—but on the other side I wouldnt put my hand in the fire well that there hadnt been tit for tat with the young champion Mr Letterblair unlocked a drawer and pushed a folded paper toward Archer This report the result of discreet enquiries And then as Archer made no effort to glance at the paper or to repudiate the suggestion the lawyer somewhat flatly continued I dont say its conclusive you observe far from it But straws show and on the whole its eminently satisfactory for all parties that this dignified solution has been reached
Oh eminently Archer assented pushing back the paper
A day or two later on responding to a summons from Mrs Manson Mingott his soul had been more deeply tried
He had found the old lady depressed and querulous
You know shes deserted me she began at once and without waiting for his reply Oh dont ask me why She gave so many reasons that Ive forgotten them all My private belief is that she couldnt face the boredom At any rate thats what Augusta and my daughtersinlaw think And I dont know that I altogether blame her Olenskis a finished scoundrel but life with him must have been a good deal gayer than it is in Fifth Avenue Not that the family would admit that they think Fifth Avenue is Heaven with the rue de la Paix thrown in And poor Ellen of course has no idea of going back to her husband She held out as firmly as ever against that So shes to settle down in Paris with that fool Medora Well Paris is Paris and you can keep a carriage there on next to nothing But she was as gay as a bird and I shall miss her Two tears the parched tears of the old rolled down her puffy cheeks and vanished in the abysses of her bosom
All I ask is she concluded that they shouldnt bother me any more I must really be allowed to digest my gruel And she twinkled a little wistfully at Archer
It was that evening on his return home that May announced her intention of giving a farewell dinner to her cousin Madame Olenskas name had not been pronounced between them since the night of her flight to Washington and Archer looked at his wife with surprise
A dinner—why he interrogated
Her colour rose But you like Ellen—I thought youd be pleased
Its awfully nice—your putting it in that way But I really dont see—
I mean to do it Newland she said quietly rising and going to her desk Here are the invitations all written Mother helped me—she agrees that we ought to She paused embarrassed and yet smiling and Archer suddenly saw before him the embodied image of the Family
Oh all right he said staring with unseeing eyes at the list of guests that she had put in his hand
When he entered the drawingroom before dinner May was stooping over the fire and trying to coax the logs to burn in their unaccustomed setting of immaculate tiles
The tall lamps were all lit and Mr van der Luydens orchids had been conspicuously disposed in various receptacles of modern porcelain and knobby silver Mrs Newland Archers drawingroom was generally thought a great success A gilt bamboo jardiniere in which the primulas and cinerarias were punctually renewed blocked the access to the bay window where the oldfashioned would have preferred a bronze reduction of the Venus of Milo the sofas and armchairs of pale brocade were cleverly grouped about little plush tables densely covered with silver toys porcelain animals and efflorescent photograph frames and tall rosyshaded lamps shot up like tropical flowers among the palms
I dont think Ellen has ever seen this room lighted up said May rising flushed from her struggle and sending about her a glance of pardonable pride The brass tongs which she had propped against the side of the chimney fell with a crash that drowned her husbands answer and before he could restore them Mr and Mrs van der Luyden were announced
The other guests quickly followed for it was known that the van der Luydens liked to dine punctually The room was nearly full and Archer was engaged in showing to Mrs Selfridge Merry a small highlyvarnished Verbeckhoven Study of Sheep which Mr Welland had given May for Christmas when he found Madame Olenska at his side
She was excessively pale and her pallor made her dark hair seem denser and heavier than ever Perhaps that or the fact that she had wound several rows of amber beads about her neck reminded him suddenly of the little Ellen Mingott he had danced with at childrens parties when Medora Manson had first brought her to New York
The amber beads were trying to her complexion or her dress was perhaps unbecoming her face looked lustreless and almost ugly and he had never loved it as he did at that minute Their hands met and he thought he heard her say Yes were sailing tomorrow in the Russia— then there was an unmeaning noise of opening doors and after an interval Mays voice Newland Dinners been announced Wont you please take Ellen in
Madame Olenska put her hand on his arm and he noticed that the hand was ungloved and remembered how he had kept his eyes fixed on it the evening that he had sat with her in the little Twentythird Street drawingroom All the beauty that had forsaken her face seemed to have taken refuge in the long pale fingers and faintly dimpled knuckles on his sleeve and he said to himself If it were only to see her hand again I should have to follow her—
It was only at an entertainment ostensibly offered to a foreign visitor that Mrs van der Luyden could suffer the diminution of being placed on her hosts left The fact of Madame Olenskas foreignness could hardly have been more adroitly emphasised than by this farewell tribute and Mrs van der Luyden accepted her displacement with an affability which left no doubt as to her approval There were certain things that had to be done and if done at all done handsomely and thoroughly and one of these in the old New York code was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe There was nothing on earth that the Wellands and Mingotts would not have done to proclaim their unalterable affection for the Countess Olenska now that her passage for Europe was engaged and Archer at the head of his table sat marvelling at the silent untiring activity with which her popularity had been retrieved grievances against her silenced her past countenanced and her present irradiated by the family approval Mrs van der Luyden shone on her with the dim benevolence which was her nearest approach to cordiality and Mr van der Luyden from his seat at Mays right cast down the table glances plainly intended to justify all the carnations he had sent from Skuytercliff
Archer who seemed to be assisting at the scene in a state of odd imponderability as if he floated somewhere between chandelier and ceiling wondered at nothing so much as his own share in the proceedings As his glance travelled from one placid wellfed face to another he saw all the harmlesslooking people engaged upon Mays canvasbacks as a band of dumb conspirators and himself and the pale woman on his right as the centre of their conspiracy And then it came over him in a vast flash made up of many broken gleams that to all of them he and Madame Olenska were lovers lovers in the extreme sense peculiar to foreign vocabularies He guessed himself to have been for months the centre of countless silently observing eyes and patiently listening ears he understood that by means as yet unknown to him the separation between himself and the partner of his guilt had been achieved and that now the whole tribe had rallied about his wife on the tacit assumption that nobody knew anything or had ever imagined anything and that the occasion of the entertainment was simply May Archers natural desire to take an affectionate leave of her friend and cousin
It was the old New York way of taking life without effusion of blood the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease who placed decency above courage and who considered that nothing was more illbred than scenes except the behaviour of those who gave rise to them
As these thoughts succeeded each other in his mind Archer felt like a prisoner in the centre of an armed camp He looked about the table and guessed at the inexorableness of his captors from the tone in which over the asparagus from Florida they were dealing with Beaufort and his wife Its to show me he thought what would happen to ME— and a deathly sense of the superiority of implication and analogy over direct action and of silence over rash words closed in on him like the doors of the family vault
He laughed and met Mrs van der Luydens startled eyes
You think it laughable she said with a pinched smile Of course poor Reginas idea of remaining in New York has its ridiculous side I suppose and Archer muttered Of course
At this point he became conscious that Madame Olenskas other neighbour had been engaged for some time with the lady on his right At the same moment he saw that May serenely enthroned between Mr van der Luyden and Mr Selfridge Merry had cast a quick glance down the table It was evident that the host and the lady on his right could not sit through the whole meal in silence He turned to Madame Olenska and her pale smile met him Oh do lets see it through it seemed to say
Did you find the journey tiring he asked in a voice that surprised him by its naturalness and she answered that on the contrary she had seldom travelled with fewer discomforts
Except you know the dreadful heat in the train she added and he remarked that she would not suffer from that particular hardship in the country she was going to
I never he declared with intensity was more nearly frozen than once in April in the train between Calais and Paris
She said she did not wonder but remarked that after all one could always carry an extra rug and that every form of travel had its hardships to which he abruptly returned that he thought them all of no account compared with the blessedness of getting away She changed colour and he added his voice suddenly rising in pitch I mean to do a lot of travelling myself before long A tremor crossed her face and leaning over to Reggie Chivers he cried out I say Reggie what do you say to a trip round the world now next month I mean Im game if you are— at which Mrs Reggie piped up that she could not think of letting Reggie go till after the Martha Washington Ball she was getting up for the Blind Asylum in Easter week and her husband placidly observed that by that time he would have to be practising for the International Polo match
But Mr Selfridge Merry had caught the phrase round the world and having once circled the globe in his steamyacht he seized the opportunity to send down the table several striking items concerning the shallowness of the Mediterranean ports Though after all he added it didnt matter for when youd seen Athens and Smyrna and Constantinople what else was there And Mrs Merry said she could never be too grateful to Dr Bencomb for having made them promise not to go to Naples on account of the fever
But you must have three weeks to do India properly her husband conceded anxious to have it understood that he was no frivolous globetrotter
And at this point the ladies went up to the drawingroom
In the library in spite of weightier presences Lawrence Lefferts predominated
The talk as usual had veered around to the Beauforts and even Mr van der Luyden and Mr Selfridge Merry installed in the honorary armchairs tacitly reserved for them paused to listen to the younger mans philippic
Never had Lefferts so abounded in the sentiments that adorn Christian manhood and exalt the sanctity of the home Indignation lent him a scathing eloquence and it was clear that if others had followed his example and acted as he talked society would never have been weak enough to receive a foreign upstart like Beaufort—no sir not even if hed married a van der Luyden or a Lanning instead of a Dallas And what chance would there have been Lefferts wrathfully questioned of his marrying into such a family as the Dallases if he had not already wormed his way into certain houses as people like Mrs Lemuel Struthers had managed to worm theirs in his wake If society chose to open its doors to vulgar women the harm was not great though the gain was doubtful but once it got in the way of tolerating men of obscure origin and tainted wealth the end was total disintegration—and at no distant date
If things go on at this pace Lefferts thundered looking like a young prophet dressed by Poole and who had not yet been stoned we shall see our children fighting for invitations to swindlers houses and marrying Beauforts bastards
Oh I say—draw it mild Reggie Chivers and young Newland protested while Mr Selfridge Merry looked genuinely alarmed and an expression of pain and disgust settled on Mr van der Luydens sensitive face
Has he got any cried Mr Sillerton Jackson pricking up his ears and while Lefferts tried to turn the question with a laugh the old gentleman twittered into Archers ear Queer those fellows who are always wanting to set things right The people who have the worst cooks are always telling you theyre poisoned when they dine out But I hear there are pressing reasons for our friend Lawrences diatribe—typewriter this time I understand
The talk swept past Archer like some senseless river running and running because it did not know enough to stop He saw on the faces about him expressions of interest amusement and even mirth He listened to the younger mens laughter and to the praise of the Archer Madeira which Mr van der Luyden and Mr Merry were thoughtfully celebrating Through it all he was dimly aware of a general attitude of friendliness toward himself as if the guard of the prisoner he felt himself to be were trying to soften his captivity and the perception increased his passionate determination to be free
In the drawingroom where they presently joined the ladies he met Mays triumphant eyes and read in them the conviction that everything had gone off beautifully She rose from Madame Olenskas side and immediately Mrs van der Luyden beckoned the latter to a seat on the gilt sofa where she throned Mrs Selfridge Merry bore across the room to join them and it became clear to Archer that here also a conspiracy of rehabilitation and obliteration was going on The silent organisation which held his little world together was determined to put itself on record as never for a moment having questioned the propriety of Madame Olenskas conduct or the completeness of Archers domestic felicity All these amiable and inexorable persons were resolutely engaged in pretending to each other that they had never heard of suspected or even conceived possible the least hint to the contrary and from this tissue of elaborate mutual dissimulation Archer once more disengaged the fact that New York believed him to be Madame Olenskas lover He caught the glitter of victory in his wifes eyes and for the first time understood that she shared the belief The discovery roused a laughter of inner devils that reverberated through all his efforts to discuss the Martha Washington ball with Mrs Reggie Chivers and little Mrs Newland and so the evening swept on running and running like a senseless river that did not know how to stop
At length he saw that Madame Olenska had risen and was saying goodbye He understood that in a moment she would be gone and tried to remember what he had said to her at dinner but he could not recall a single word they had exchanged
She went up to May the rest of the company making a circle about her as she advanced The two young women clasped hands then May bent forward and kissed her cousin
Certainly our hostess is much the handsomer of the two Archer heard Reggie Chivers say in an undertone to young Mrs Newland and he remembered Beauforts coarse sneer at Mays ineffectual beauty
A moment later he was in the hall putting Madame Olenskas cloak about her shoulders
Through all his confusion of mind he had held fast to the resolve to say nothing that might startle or disturb her Convinced that no power could now turn him from his purpose he had found strength to let events shape themselves as they would But as he followed Madame Olenska into the hall he thought with a sudden hunger of being for a moment alone with her at the door of her carriage
Is your carriage here he asked and at that moment Mrs van der Luyden who was being majestically inserted into her sables said gently We are driving dear Ellen home
Archers heart gave a jerk and Madame Olenska clasping her cloak and fan with one hand held out the other to him Goodbye she said
Goodbye—but I shall see you soon in Paris he answered aloud—it seemed to him that he had shouted it
Oh she murmured if you and May could come—
Mr van der Luyden advanced to give her his arm and Archer turned to Mrs van der Luyden For a moment in the billowy darkness inside the big landau he caught the dim oval of a face eyes shining steadily—and she was gone
As he went up the steps he crossed Lawrence Lefferts coming down with his wife Lefferts caught his host by the sleeve drawing back to let Gertrude pass
I say old chap do you mind just letting it be understood that Im dining with you at the club tomorrow night Thanks so much you old brick Goodnight
It DID go off beautifully didnt it May questioned from the threshold of the library
Archer roused himself with a start As soon as the last carriage had driven away he had come up to the library and shut himself in with the hope that his wife who still lingered below would go straight to her room But there she stood pale and drawn yet radiating the factitious energy of one who has passed beyond fatigue
May I come and talk it over she asked
Of course if you like But you must be awfully sleepy—
No Im not sleepy I should like to sit with you a little
Very well he said pushing her chair near the fire
She sat down and he resumed his seat but neither spoke for a long time At length Archer began abruptly Since youre not tired and want to talk theres something I must tell you I tried to the other night—
She looked at him quickly Yes dear Something about yourself
About myself You say youre not tired well I am Horribly tired
In an instant she was all tender anxiety Oh Ive seen it coming on Newland Youve been so wickedly overworked—
Perhaps its that Anyhow I want to make a break—
A break To give up the law
To go away at any rate—at once On a long trip ever so far off—away from everything—
He paused conscious that he had failed in his attempt to speak with the indifference of a man who longs for a change and is yet too weary to welcome it Do what he would the chord of eagerness vibrated Away from everything— he repeated
Ever so far Where for instance she asked
Oh I dont know India—or Japan
She stood up and as he sat with bent head his chin propped on his hands he felt her warmly and fragrantly hovering over him
As far as that But Im afraid you cant dear she said in an unsteady voice Not unless youll take me with you And then as he was silent she went on in tones so clear and evenlypitched that each separate syllable tapped like a little hammer on his brain That is if the doctors will let me go but Im afraid they wont For you see Newland Ive been sure since this morning of something Ive been so longing and hoping for—
He looked up at her with a sick stare and she sank down all dew and roses and hid her face against his knee
Oh my dear he said holding her to him while his cold hand stroked her hair
There was a long pause which the inner devils filled with strident laughter then May freed herself from his arms and stood up
You didnt guess—
Yes—I no That is of course I hoped—
They looked at each other for an instant and again fell silent then turning his eyes from hers he asked abruptly Have you told any one else
Only Mamma and your mother She paused and then added hurriedly the blood flushing up to her forehead That is—and Ellen You know I told you wed had a long talk one afternoon—and how dear she was to me
Ah— said Archer his heart stopping
He felt that his wife was watching him intently Did you MIND my telling her first Newland
Mind Why should I He made a last effort to collect himself But that was a fortnight ago wasnt it I thought you said you werent sure till today
Her colour burned deeper but she held his gaze No I wasnt sure then—but I told her I was And you see I was right she exclaimed her blue eyes wet with victory
XXXIV
Newland Archer sat at the writingtable in his library in East Thirtyninth Street
He had just got back from a big official reception for the inauguration of the new galleries at the Metropolitan Museum and the spectacle of those great spaces crowded with the spoils of the ages where the throng of fashion circulated through a series of scientifically catalogued treasures had suddenly pressed on a rusted spring of memory
Why this used to be one of the old Cesnola rooms he heard some one say and instantly everything about him vanished and he was sitting alone on a hard leather divan against a radiator while a slight figure in a long sealskin cloak moved away down the meagrelyfitted vista of the old Museum
The vision had roused a host of other associations and he sat looking with new eyes at the library which for over thirty years had been the scene of his solitary musings and of all the family confabulations
It was the room in which most of the real things of his life had happened There his wife nearly twentysix years ago had broken to him with a blushing circumlocution that would have caused the young women of the new generation to smile the news that she was to have a child and there their eldest boy Dallas too delicate to be taken to church in midwinter had been christened by their old friend the Bishop of New York the ample magnificent irreplaceable Bishop so long the pride and ornament of his diocese There Dallas had first staggered across the floor shouting Dad while May and the nurse laughed behind the door there their second child Mary who was so like her mother had announced her engagement to the dullest and most reliable of Reggie Chiverss many sons and there Archer had kissed her through her wedding veil before they went down to the motor which was to carry them to Grace Church—for in a world where all else had reeled on its foundations the Grace Church wedding remained an unchanged institution
It was in the library that he and May had always discussed the future of the children the studies of Dallas and his young brother Bill Marys incurable indifference to accomplishments and passion for sport and philanthropy and the vague leanings toward art which had finally landed the restless and curious Dallas in the office of a rising New York architect
The young men nowadays were emancipating themselves from the law and business and taking up all sorts of new things If they were not absorbed in state politics or municipal reform the chances were that they were going in for Central American archaeology for architecture or landscapeengineering taking a keen and learned interest in the prerevolutionary buildings of their own country studying and adapting Georgian types and protesting at the meaningless use of the word Colonial Nobody nowadays had Colonial houses except the millionaire grocers of the suburbs
But above all—sometimes Archer put it above all—it was in that library that the Governor of New York coming down from Albany one evening to dine and spend the night had turned to his host and said banging his clenched fist on the table and gnashing his eyeglasses Hang the professional politician Youre the kind of man the country wants Archer If the stables ever to be cleaned out men like you have got to lend a hand in the cleaning
Men like you— how Archer had glowed at the phrase How eagerly he had risen up at the call It was an echo of Ned Winsetts old appeal to roll his sleeves up and get down into the muck but spoken by a man who set the example of the gesture and whose summons to follow him was irresistible
Archer as he looked back was not sure that men like himself WERE what his country needed at least in the active service to which Theodore Roosevelt had pointed in fact there was reason to think it did not for after a year in the State Assembly he had not been reelected and had dropped back thankfully into obscure if useful municipal work and from that again to the writing of occasional articles in one of the reforming weeklies that were trying to shake the country out of its apathy It was little enough to look back on but when he remembered to what the young men of his generation and his set had looked forward—the narrow groove of moneymaking sport and society to which their vision had been limited—even his small contribution to the new state of things seemed to count as each brick counts in a wellbuilt wall He had done little in public life he would always be by nature a contemplative and a dilettante but he had had high things to contemplate great things to delight in and one great mans friendship to be his strength and pride
He had been in short what people were beginning to call a good citizen In New York for many years past every new movement philanthropic municipal or artistic had taken account of his opinion and wanted his name People said Ask Archer when there was a question of starting the first school for crippled children reorganising the Museum of Art founding the Grolier Club inaugurating the new Library or getting up a new society of chamber music His days were full and they were filled decently He supposed it was all a man ought to ask
Something he knew he had missed the flower of life But he thought of it now as a thing so unattainable and improbable that to have repined would have been like despairing because one had not drawn the first prize in a lottery There were a hundred million tickets in HIS lottery and there was only one prize the chances had been too decidedly against him When he thought of Ellen Olenska it was abstractly serenely as one might think of some imaginary beloved in a book or a picture she had become the composite vision of all that he had missed That vision faint and tenuous as it was had kept him from thinking of other women He had been what was called a faithful husband and when May had suddenly died—carried off by the infectious pneumonia through which she had nursed their youngest child—he had honestly mourned her Their long years together had shown him that it did not so much matter if marriage was a dull duty as long as it kept the dignity of a duty lapsing from that it became a mere battle of ugly appetites Looking about him he honoured his own past and mourned for it After all there was good in the old ways
His eyes making the round of the room—done over by Dallas with English mezzotints Chippendale cabinets bits of chosen blueandwhite and pleasantly shaded electric lamps—came back to the old Eastlake writingtable that he had never been willing to banish and to his first photograph of May which still kept its place beside his inkstand
There she was tall roundbosomed and willowy in her starched muslin and flapping Leghorn as he had seen her under the orangetrees in the Mission garden And as he had seen her that day so she had remained never quite at the same height yet never far below it generous faithful unwearied but so lacking in imagination so incapable of growth that the world of her youth had fallen into pieces and rebuilt itself without her ever being conscious of the change This hard bright blindness had kept her immediate horizon apparently unaltered Her incapacity to recognise change made her children conceal their views from her as Archer concealed his there had been from the first a joint pretence of sameness a kind of innocent family hypocrisy in which father and children had unconsciously collaborated And she had died thinking the world a good place full of loving and harmonious households like her own and resigned to leave it because she was convinced that whatever happened Newland would continue to inculcate in Dallas the same principles and prejudices which had shaped his parents lives and that Dallas in turn when Newland followed her would transmit the sacred trust to little Bill And of Mary she was sure as of her own self So having snatched little Bill from the grave and given her life in the effort she went contentedly to her place in the Archer vault in St Marks where Mrs Archer already lay safe from the terrifying trend which her daughterinlaw had never even become aware of
Opposite Mays portrait stood one of her daughter Mary Chivers was as tall and fair as her mother but largewaisted flatchested and slightly slouching as the altered fashion required Mary Chiverss mighty feats of athleticism could not have been performed with the twentyinch waist that May Archers azure sash so easily spanned And the difference seemed symbolic the mothers life had been as closely girt as her figure Mary who was no less conventional and no more intelligent yet led a larger life and held more tolerant views There was good in the new order too
The telephone clicked and Archer turning from the photographs unhooked the transmitter at his elbow How far they were from the days when the legs of the brassbuttoned messenger boy had been New Yorks only means of quick communication
Chicago wants you
Ah—it must be a longdistance from Dallas who had been sent to Chicago by his firm to talk over the plan of the Lakeside palace they were to build for a young millionaire with ideas The firm always sent Dallas on such errands
Hallo Dad—Yes Dallas I say—how do you feel about sailing on Wednesday Mauretania Yes next Wednesday as ever is Our client wants me to look at some Italian gardens before we settle anything and has asked me to nip over on the next boat Ive got to be back on the first of June— the voice broke into a joyful conscious laugh—so we must look alive I say Dad I want your help do come
Dallas seemed to be speaking in the room the voice was as near by and natural as if he had been lounging in his favourite armchair by the fire The fact would not ordinarily have surprised Archer for longdistance telephoning had become as much a matter of course as electric lighting and fiveday Atlantic voyages But the laugh did startle him it still seemed wonderful that across all those miles and miles of country—forest river mountain prairie roaring cities and busy indifferent millions—Dallass laugh should be able to say Of course whatever happens I must get back on the first because Fanny Beaufort and I are to be married on the fifth
The voice began again Think it over No sir not a minute Youve got to say yes now Why not Id like to know If you can allege a single reason—No I knew it Then its a go eh Because I count on you to ring up the Cunard office first thing tomorrow and youd better book a return on a boat from Marseilles I say Dad itll be our last time together in this kind of way— Oh good I knew you would
Chicago rang off and Archer rose and began to pace up and down the room
It would be their last time together in this kind of way the boy was right They would have lots of other times after Dallass marriage his father was sure for the two were born comrades and Fanny Beaufort whatever one might think of her did not seem likely to interfere with their intimacy On the contrary from what he had seen of her he thought she would be naturally included in it Still change was change and differences were differences and much as he felt himself drawn toward his future daughterinlaw it was tempting to seize this last chance of being alone with his boy
There was no reason why he should not seize it except the profound one that he had lost the habit of travel May had disliked to move except for valid reasons such as taking the children to the sea or in the mountains she could imagine no other motive for leaving the house in Thirtyninth Street or their comfortable quarters at the Wellands in Newport After Dallas had taken his degree she had thought it her duty to travel for six months and the whole family had made the oldfashioned tour through England Switzerland and Italy Their time being limited no one knew why they had omitted France Archer remembered Dallass wrath at being asked to contemplate Mont Blanc instead of Rheims and Chartres But Mary and Bill wanted mountainclimbing and had already yawned their way in Dallass wake through the English cathedrals and May always fair to her children had insisted on holding the balance evenly between their athletic and artistic proclivities She had indeed proposed that her husband should go to Paris for a fortnight and join them on the Italian lakes after they had done Switzerland but Archer had declined Well stick together he said and Mays face had brightened at his setting such a good example to Dallas
Since her death nearly two years before there had been no reason for his continuing in the same routine His children had urged him to travel Mary Chivers had felt sure it would do him good to go abroad and see the galleries The very mysteriousness of such a cure made her the more confident of its efficacy But Archer had found himself held fast by habit by memories by a sudden startled shrinking from new things
Now as he reviewed his past he saw into what a deep rut he had sunk The worst of doing ones duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else At least that was the view that the men of his generation had taken The trenchant divisions between right and wrong honest and dishonest respectable and the reverse had left so little scope for the unforeseen There are moments when a mans imagination so easily subdued to what it lives in suddenly rises above its daily level and surveys the long windings of destiny Archer hung there and wondered
What was left of the little world he had grown up in and whose standards had bent and bound him He remembered a sneering prophecy of poor Lawrence Leffertss uttered years ago in that very room If things go on at this rate our children will be marrying Beauforts bastards
It was just what Archers eldest son the pride of his life was doing and nobody wondered or reproved Even the boys Aunt Janey who still looked so exactly as she used to in her elderly youth had taken her mothers emeralds and seedpearls out of their pink cottonwool and carried them with her own twitching hands to the future bride and Fanny Beaufort instead of looking disappointed at not receiving a set from a Paris jeweller had exclaimed at their oldfashioned beauty and declared that when she wore them she should feel like an Isabey miniature
Fanny Beaufort who had appeared in New York at eighteen after the death of her parents had won its heart much as Madame Olenska had won it thirty years earlier only instead of being distrustful and afraid of her society took her joyfully for granted She was pretty amusing and accomplished what more did any one want Nobody was narrowminded enough to rake up against her the halfforgotten facts of her fathers past and her own origin Only the older people remembered so obscure an incident in the business life of New York as Beauforts failure or the fact that after his wifes death he had been quietly married to the notorious Fanny Ring and had left the country with his new wife and a little girl who inherited her beauty He was subsequently heard of in Constantinople then in Russia and a dozen years later American travellers were handsomely entertained by him in Buenos Ayres where he represented a large insurance agency He and his wife died there in the odour of prosperity and one day their orphaned daughter had appeared in New York in charge of May Archers sisterinlaw Mrs Jack Welland whose husband had been appointed the girls guardian The fact threw her into almost cousinly relationship with Newland Archers children and nobody was surprised when Dallass engagement was announced
Nothing could more dearly give the measure of the distance that the world had travelled People nowadays were too busy—busy with reforms and movements with fads and fetishes and frivolities—to bother much about their neighbours And of what account was anybodys past in the huge kaleidoscope where all the social atoms spun around on the same plane
Newland Archer looking out of his hotel window at the stately gaiety of the Paris streets felt his heart beating with the confusion and eagerness of youth
It was long since it had thus plunged and reared under his widening waistcoat leaving him the next minute with an empty breast and hot temples He wondered if it was thus that his sons conducted itself in the presence of Miss Fanny Beaufort—and decided that it was not It functions as actively no doubt but the rhythm is different he reflected recalling the cool composure with which the young man had announced his engagement and taken for granted that his family would approve
The difference is that these young people take it for granted that theyre going to get whatever they want and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldnt Only I wonder—the thing ones so certain of in advance can it ever make ones heart beat as wildly
It was the day after their arrival in Paris and the spring sunshine held Archer in his open window above the wide silvery prospect of the Place Vendome One of the things he had stipulated—almost the only one—when he had agreed to come abroad with Dallas was that in Paris he shouldnt be made to go to one of the newfangled palaces
Oh all right—of course Dallas goodnaturedly agreed Ill take you to some jolly oldfashioned place—the Bristol say— leaving his father speechless at hearing that the centurylong home of kings and emperors was now spoken of as an oldfashioned inn where one went for its quaint inconveniences and lingering local colour
Archer had pictured often enough in the first impatient years the scene of his return to Paris then the personal vision had faded and he had simply tried to see the city as the setting of Madame Olenskas life Sitting alone at night in his library after the household had gone to bed he had evoked the radiant outbreak of spring down the avenues of horsechestnuts the flowers and statues in the public gardens the whiff of lilacs from the flowercarts the majestic roll of the river under the great bridges and the life of art and study and pleasure that filled each mighty artery to bursting Now the spectacle was before him in its glory and as he looked out on it he felt shy oldfashioned inadequate a mere grey speck of a man compared with the ruthless magnificent fellow he had dreamed of being
Dallass hand came down cheerily on his shoulder Hullo father this is something like isnt it They stood for a while looking out in silence and then the young man continued By the way Ive got a message for you the Countess Olenska expects us both at halfpast five
He said it lightly carelessly as he might have imparted any casual item of information such as the hour at which their train was to leave for Florence the next evening Archer looked at him and thought he saw in his gay young eyes a gleam of his greatgrandmother Mingotts malice
Oh didnt I tell you Dallas pursued Fanny made me swear to do three things while I was in Paris get her the score of the last Debussy songs go to the GrandGuignol and see Madame Olenska You know she was awfully good to Fanny when Mr Beaufort sent her over from Buenos Ayres to the Assomption Fanny hadnt any friends in Paris and Madame Olenska used to be kind to her and trot her about on holidays I believe she was a great friend of the first Mrs Beauforts And shes our cousin of course So I rang her up this morning before I went out and told her you and I were here for two days and wanted to see her
Archer continued to stare at him You told her I was here
Of course—why not Dallass eye brows went up whimsically Then getting no answer he slipped his arm through his fathers with a confidential pressure
I say father what was she like
Archer felt his colour rise under his sons unabashed gaze Come own up you and she were great pals werent you Wasnt she most awfully lovely
Lovely I dont know She was different
Ah—there you have it Thats what it always comes to doesnt it When she comes SHES DIFFERENT—and one doesnt know why Its exactly what I feel about Fanny
His father drew back a step releasing his arm About Fanny But my dear fellow—I should hope so Only I dont see—
Dash it Dad dont be prehistoric Wasnt she—once—your Fanny
Dallas belonged body and soul to the new generation He was the firstborn of Newland and May Archer yet it had never been possible to inculcate in him even the rudiments of reserve Whats the use of making mysteries It only makes people want to nose em out he always objected when enjoined to discretion But Archer meeting his eyes saw the filial light under their banter
My Fanny
Well the woman youd have chucked everything for only you didnt continued his surprising son
I didnt echoed Archer with a kind of solemnity
No you date you see dear old boy But mother said—
Your mother
Yes the day before she died It was when she sent for me alone—you remember She said she knew we were safe with you and always would be because once when she asked you to youd given up the thing you most wanted
Archer received this strange communication in silence His eyes remained unseeingly fixed on the thronged sunlit square below the window At length he said in a low voice She never asked me
No I forgot You never did ask each other anything did you And you never told each other anything You just sat and watched each other and guessed at what was going on underneath A deafanddumb asylum in fact Well I back your generation for knowing more about each others private thoughts than we ever have time to find out about our own—I say Dad Dallas broke off youre not angry with me If you are lets make it up and go and lunch at Henris Ive got to rush out to Versailles afterward
Archer did not accompany his son to Versailles He preferred to spend the afternoon in solitary roamings through Paris He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime
After a little while he did not regret Dallass indiscretion It seemed to take an iron band from his heart to know that after all some one had guessed and pitied And that it should have been his wife moved him indescribably Dallas for all his affectionate insight would not have understood that To the boy no doubt the episode was only a pathetic instance of vain frustration of wasted forces But was it really no more For a long time Archer sat on a bench in the Champs Elysees and wondered while the stream of life rolled by
A few streets away a few hours away Ellen Olenska waited She had never gone back to her husband and when he had died some years before she had made no change in her way of living There was nothing now to keep her and Archer apart—and that afternoon he was to see her
He got up and walked across the Place de la Concorde and the Tuileries gardens to the Louvre She had once told him that she often went there and he had a fancy to spend the intervening time in a place where he could think of her as perhaps having lately been For an hour or more he wandered from gallery to gallery through the dazzle of afternoon light and one by one the pictures burst on him in their halfforgotten splendour filling his soul with the long echoes of beauty After all his life had been too starved
Suddenly before an effulgent Titian he found himself saying But Im only fiftyseven— and then he turned away For such summer dreams it was too late but surely not for a quiet harvest of friendship of comradeship in the blessed hush of her nearness
He went back to the hotel where he and Dallas were to meet and together they walked again across the Place de la Concorde and over the bridge that leads to the Chamber of Deputies
Dallas unconscious of what was going on in his fathers mind was talking excitedly and abundantly of Versailles He had had but one previous glimpse of it during a holiday trip in which he had tried to pack all the sights he had been deprived of when he had had to go with the family to Switzerland and tumultuous enthusiasm and cocksure criticism tripped each other up on his lips
As Archer listened his sense of inadequacy and inexpressiveness increased The boy was not insensitive he knew but he had the facility and selfconfidence that came of looking at fate not as a master but as an equal Thats it they feel equal to things—they know their way about he mused thinking of his son as the spokesman of the new generation which had swept away all the old landmarks and with them the signposts and the dangersignal
Suddenly Dallas stopped short grasping his fathers arm Oh by Jove he exclaimed
They had come out into the great treeplanted space before the Invalides The dome of Mansart floated ethereally above the budding trees and the long grey front of the building drawing up into itself all the rays of afternoon light it hung there like the visible symbol of the races glory
Archer knew that Madame Olenska lived in a square near one of the avenues radiating from the Invalides and he had pictured the quarter as quiet and almost obscure forgetting the central splendour that lit it up Now by some queer process of association that golden light became for him the pervading illumination in which she lived For nearly thirty years her life—of which he knew so strangely little—had been spent in this rich atmosphere that he already felt to be too dense and yet too stimulating for his lungs He thought of the theatres she must have been to the pictures she must have looked at the sober and splendid old houses she must have frequented the people she must have talked with the incessant stir of ideas curiosities images and associations thrown out by an intensely social race in a setting of immemorial manners and suddenly he remembered the young Frenchman who had once said to him Ah good conversation—there is nothing like it is there
Archer had not seen M Riviere or heard of him for nearly thirty years and that fact gave the measure of his ignorance of Madame Olenskas existence More than half a lifetime divided them and she had spent the long interval among people he did not know in a society he but faintly guessed at in conditions he would never wholly understand During that time he had been living with his youthful memory of her but she had doubtless had other and more tangible companionship Perhaps she too had kept her memory of him as something apart but if she had it must have been like a relic in a small dim chapel where there was not time to pray every day
They had crossed the Place des Invalides and were walking down one of the thoroughfares flanking the building It was a quiet quarter after all in spite of its splendour and its history and the fact gave one an idea of the riches Paris had to draw on since such scenes as this were left to the few and the indifferent
The day was fading into a soft sunshot haze pricked here and there by a yellow electric light and passers were rare in the little square into which they had turned Dallas stopped again and looked up
It must be here he said slipping his arm through his fathers with a movement from which Archers shyness did not shrink and they stood together looking up at the house
It was a modern building without distinctive character but manywindowed and pleasantly balconied up its wide creamcoloured front On one of the upper balconies which hung well above the rounded tops of the horsechestnuts in the square the awnings were still lowered as though the sun had just left it
I wonder which floor— Dallas conjectured and moving toward the portecochere he put his head into the porters lodge and came back to say The fifth It must be the one with the awnings
Archer remained motionless gazing at the upper windows as if the end of their pilgrimage had been attained
I say you know its nearly six his son at length reminded him
The father glanced away at an empty bench under the trees
I believe Ill sit there a moment he said
Why—arent you well his son exclaimed
Oh perfectly But I should like you please to go up without me
Dallas paused before him visibly bewildered But I say Dad do you mean you wont come up at all
I dont know said Archer slowly
If you dont she wont understand
Go my boy perhaps I shall follow you
Dallas gave him a long look through the twilight
But what on earth shall I say
My dear fellow dont you always know what to say his father rejoined with a smile
Very well I shall say youre oldfashioned and prefer walking up the five flights because you dont like lifts
His father smiled again Say Im oldfashioned thats enough
Dallas looked at him again and then with an incredulous gesture passed out of sight under the vaulted doorway
Archer sat down on the bench and continued to gaze at the awninged balcony He calculated the time it would take his son to be carried up in the lift to the fifth floor to ring the bell and be admitted to the hall and then ushered into the drawingroom He pictured Dallas entering that room with his quick assured step and his delightful smile and wondered if the people were right who said that his boy took after him
Then he tried to see the persons already in the room—for probably at that sociable hour there would be more than one—and among them a dark lady pale and dark who would look up quickly half rise and hold out a long thin hand with three rings on it He thought she would be sitting in a sofacorner near the fire with azaleas banked behind her on a table
Its more real to me here than if I went up he suddenly heard himself say and the fear lest that last shadow of reality should lose its edge kept him rooted to his seat as the minutes succeeded each other
He sat for a long time on the bench in the thickening dusk his eyes never turning from the balcony At length a light shone through the windows and a moment later a manservant came out on the balcony drew up the awnings and closed the shutters
At that as if it had been the signal he waited for Newland Archer got up slowly and walked back alone to his hotel