The Age of Innocence

  X.

  The next day he persuaded May to escape for a walk in the Park afterluncheon. As was the custom in old-fashioned Episcopalian New York,she usually accompanied her parents to church on Sunday afternoons; butMrs. Welland condoned her truancy, having that very morning won herover to the necessity of a long engagement, with time to prepare ahand-embroidered trousseau containing the proper number of dozens.

  The day was delectable. The bare vaulting of trees along the Mall wasceiled with lapis lazuli, and arched above snow that shone likesplintered crystals. It was the weather to call out May's radiance,and she burned like a young maple in the frost. Archer was proud ofthe glances turned on her, and the simple joy of possessorship clearedaway his underlying perplexities.

  "It's so delicious--waking every morning to smell lilies-of-the-valleyin one's room!" she said.

  "Yesterday they came late. I hadn't time in the morning--"

  "But your remembering each day to send them makes me love them so muchmore than if you'd given a standing order, and they came every morningon the minute, like one's music-teacher--as I know Gertrude Lefferts'sdid, for instance, when she and Lawrence were engaged."

  "Ah--they would!" laughed Archer, amused at her keenness. He lookedsideways at her fruit-like cheek and felt rich and secure enough toadd: "When I sent your lilies yesterday afternoon I saw some rathergorgeous yellow roses and packed them off to Madame Olenska. Was thatright?"

  "How dear of you! Anything of that kind delights her. It's odd shedidn't mention it: she lunched with us today, and spoke of Mr.Beaufort's having sent her wonderful orchids, and cousin Henry van derLuyden a whole hamper of carnations from Skuytercliff. She seems sosurprised to receive flowers. Don't people send them in Europe? Shethinks it such a pretty custom."

  "Oh, well, no wonder mine were overshadowed by Beaufort's," said Archerirritably. Then he remembered that he had not put a card with theroses, and was vexed at having spoken of them. He wanted to say: "Icalled on your cousin yesterday," but hesitated. If Madame Olenska hadnot spoken of his visit it might seem awkward that he should. Yet notto do so gave the affair an air of mystery that he disliked. To shakeoff the question he began to talk of their own plans, their future, andMrs. Welland's insistence on a long engagement.

  "If you call it long! Isabel Chivers and Reggie were engaged for twoyears: Grace and Thorley for nearly a year and a half. Why aren't wevery well off as we are?"

  It was the traditional maidenly interrogation, and he felt ashamed ofhimself for finding it singularly childish. No doubt she simply echoedwhat was said for her; but she was nearing her twenty-second birthday,and he wondered at what age "nice" women began to speak for themselves.

  "Never, if we won't let them, I suppose," he mused, and recalled hismad outburst to Mr. Sillerton Jackson: "Women ought to be as free as weare--"

  It would presently be his task to take the bandage from this youngwoman's eyes, and bid her look forth on the world. But how manygenerations of the women who had gone to her making had descendedbandaged to the family vault? He shivered a little, remembering someof the new ideas in his scientific books, and the much-cited instanceof the Kentucky cave-fish, which had ceased to develop eyes becausethey had no use for them. What if, when he had bidden May Welland toopen hers, they could only look out blankly at blankness?

  "We might be much better off. We might be altogether together--wemight travel."

  Her face lit up. "That would be lovely," she owned: she would love totravel. But her mother would not understand their wanting to do thingsso differently.

  "As if the mere 'differently' didn't account for it!" the wooerinsisted.

  "Newland! You're so original!" she exulted.

  His heart sank, for he saw that he was saying all the things that youngmen in the same situation were expected to say, and that she was makingthe answers that instinct and tradition taught her to make--even to thepoint of calling him original.

  "Original! We're all as like each other as those dolls cut out of thesame folded paper. We're like patterns stencilled on a wall. Can'tyou and I strike out for ourselves, May?"

  He had stopped and faced her in the excitement of their discussion, andher eyes rested on him with a bright unclouded admiration.

  "Mercy--shall we elope?" she laughed.

  "If you would--"

  "You DO love me, Newland! I'm so happy."

  "But then--why not be happier?"

  "We can't 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 thatthey couldn't, but it was troublesome to have to produce a reason."I'm not clever enough to argue with you. But that kind of thing israther--vulgar, isn't it?" she suggested, relieved to have hit on aword 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--sowould you," she rejoined, a trifle irritably.

  He stood silent, beating his stick nervously against his boot-top; andfeeling that she had indeed found the right way of closing thediscussion, she went on light-heartedly: "Oh, did I tell you that Ishowed Ellen my ring? She thinks it the most beautiful setting sheever saw. There's nothing like it in the rue de la Paix, she said. Ido love you, Newland, for being so artistic!"

  The next afternoon, as Archer, before dinner, sat smoking sullenly inhis study, Janey wandered in on him. He had failed to stop at his clubon the way up from the office where he exercised the profession of thelaw in the leisurely manner common to well-to-do New Yorkers of hisclass. He was out of spirits and slightly out of temper, and ahaunting horror of doing the same thing every day at the same hourbesieged his brain.

  "Sameness--sameness!" he muttered, the word running through his headlike a persecuting tune as he saw the familiar tall-hatted figureslounging behind the plate-glass; and because he usually dropped in atthe club at that hour he had gone home instead. He knew not only whatthey were likely to be talking about, but the part each one would takein the discussion. The Duke of course would be their principal theme;though the appearance in Fifth Avenue of a golden-haired lady in asmall canary-coloured brougham with a pair of black cobs (for whichBeaufort was generally thought responsible) would also doubtless bethoroughly gone into. Such "women" (as they were called) were few inNew York, those driving their own carriages still fewer, and theappearance of Miss Fanny Ring in Fifth Avenue at the fashionable hourhad profoundly agitated society. Only the day before, her carriage hadpassed Mrs. Lovell Mingott's, and the latter had instantly rung thelittle bell at her elbow and ordered the coachman to drive her home."What if it had happened to Mrs. van der Luyden?" people asked eachother with a shudder. Archer could hear Lawrence Lefferts, at thatvery hour, holding forth on the disintegration of society.

  He raised his head irritably when his sister Janey entered, and thenquickly bent over his book (Swinburne's "Chastelard"--just out) as ifhe had not seen her. She glanced at the writing-table heaped withbooks, opened a volume of the "Contes Drolatiques," made a wry faceover the archaic French, and sighed: "What learned things you read!"

  "Well--?" he asked, as she hovered Cassandra-like before him.

  "Mother's very angry."

  "Angry? With whom? About what?"

  "Miss Sophy Jackson has just been here. She brought word that herbrother would come in after dinner: she couldn't say very much, becausehe forbade her to: he wishes to give all the details himself. He'swith cousin Louisa van der Luyden now."

  "For heaven's sake, my dear girl, try a fresh start. It would take anomniscient Deity to know what you're talking about."

  "It's not a time to be profane, Newland.... Mother feels badly enoughabout your not going to church ..."

  With a groan he plunged back into his book.

  "NEWLAND! Do listen. Your friend Madame Olenska was at Mrs. LemuelStruthers's party last night
: she went there with the Duke and Mr.Beaufort."

  At the last clause of this announcement a senseless anger swelled theyoung man's breast. To smother it he laughed. "Well, what of it? Iknew she meant to."

  Janey paled and her eyes began to project. "You knew she meant to--andyou didn't try to stop her? To warn her?"

  "Stop her? Warn her?" He laughed again. "I'm not engaged to bemarried to the Countess Olenska!" The words had a fantastic sound inhis own ears.

  "You're marrying into her family."

  "Oh, family--family!" he jeered.

  "Newland--don't 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 maid's 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 derLuydens, and so we all are, when it comes to being so much as brushedby the wing-tip of Reality." But he saw her long gentle face puckeringinto tears, and felt ashamed of the useless pain he was inflicting.

  "Hang Countess Olenska! Don't be a goose, Janey--I'm not her keeper."

  "No; but you DID ask the Wellands to announce your engagement sooner sothat we might all back her up; and if it hadn't been for that cousinLouisa would never have invited her to the dinner for the Duke."

  "Well--what harm was there in inviting her? She was the best-lookingwoman in the room; she made the dinner a little less funereal than theusual van der Luyden banquet."

  "You know cousin Henry asked her to please you: he persuaded cousinLouisa. And now they're so upset that they're going back toSkuytercliff tomorrow. I think, Newland, you'd better come down. Youdon't seem to understand how mother feels."

  In the drawing-room Newland found his mother. She raised a troubledbrow from her needlework to ask: "Has Janey told you?"

  "Yes." He tried to keep his tone as measured as her own. "But I can'ttake 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 CountessOlenska's going to the house of a woman they consider common."

  "Consider--!"

  "Well, who is; but who has good music, and amuses people on Sundayevenings, 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 tableand sang the things they sing at the places you go to in Paris. Therewas smoking and champagne."

  "Well--that kind of thing happens in other places, and the world stillgoes on."

  "I don't suppose, dear, you're really defending the French Sunday?"

  "I've heard you often enough, mother, grumble at the English Sundaywhen we've been in London."

  "New York is neither Paris nor London."

  "Oh, no, it's not!" her son groaned.

  "You mean, I suppose, that society here is not as brilliant? You'reright, I daresay; but we belong here, and people should respect ourways when they come among us. Ellen Olenska especially: she came backto get away from the kind of life people lead in brilliant societies."

  Newland made no answer, and after a moment his mother ventured: "I wasgoing to put on my bonnet and ask you to take me to see cousin Louisafor a moment before dinner." He frowned, and she continued: "I thoughtyou might explain to her what you've just said: that society abroad isdifferent ... that people are not as particular, and that MadameOlenska may not have realised how we feel about such things. It wouldbe, you know, dear," she added with an innocent adroitness, "in MadameOlenska's interest if you did."

  "Dearest mother, I really don't see how we're concerned in the matter.The Duke took Madame Olenska to Mrs. Struthers's--in fact he broughtMrs. Struthers to call on her. I was there when they came. If the vander Luydens want to quarrel with anybody, the real culprit is undertheir own roof."

  "Quarrel? Newland, did you ever know of cousin Henry's quarrelling?Besides, the Duke's his guest; and a stranger too. Strangers don'tdiscriminate: how should they? Countess Olenska is a New Yorker, andshould have respected the feelings of New York."

  "Well, then, if they must have a victim, you have my leave to throwMadame Olenska to them," cried her son, exasperated. "I don't seemyself--or you either--offering ourselves up to expiate her crimes."

  "Oh, of course you see only the Mingott side," his mother answered, inthe sensitive tone that was her nearest approach to anger.

  The sad butler drew back the drawing-room portieres and announced:"Mr. Henry van der Luyden."

  Mrs. Archer dropped her needle and pushed her chair back with anagitated hand.

  "Another lamp," she cried to the retreating servant, while Janey bentover to straighten her mother's cap.

  Mr. van der Luyden's figure loomed on the threshold, and Newland Archerwent 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 offhis glove to shake hands with the ladies, and smoothed his tall hatshyly, while Janey pushed an arm-chair 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 derLuyden, complacency restored to his brow. He sank into the chair, laidhis hat and gloves on the floor beside him in the old-fashioned way,and went on: "She has a real gift for arranging flowers. I had senther a few carnations from Skuytercliff, and I was astonished. Insteadof massing them in big bunches as our head-gardener does, she hadscattered them about loosely, here and there ... I can't say how. TheDuke had told me: he said: 'Go and see how cleverly she's arranged herdrawing-room.' And she has. I should really like to take Louisa tosee her, if the neighbourhood were not so--unpleasant."

  A dead silence greeted this unusual flow of words from Mr. van derLuyden. Mrs. Archer drew her embroidery out of the basket into whichshe had nervously tumbled it, and Newland, leaning against thechimney-place and twisting a humming-bird-feather screen in his hand,saw Janey's gaping countenance lit up by the coming of the second lamp.

  "The fact is," Mr. van der Luyden continued, stroking his long grey legwith a bloodless hand weighed down by the Patroon's great signet-ring,"the fact is, I dropped in to thank her for the very pretty note shewrote me about my flowers; and also--but this is between ourselves, ofcourse--to give her a friendly warning about allowing the Duke to carryher off to parties with him. I don't know if you've heard--"

  Mrs. Archer produced an indulgent smile. "Has the Duke been carryingher off to parties?"

  "You know what these English grandees are. They're all alike. Louisaand I are very fond of our cousin--but it's hopeless to expect peoplewho are accustomed to the European courts to trouble themselves aboutour little republican distinctions. The Duke goes where he's amused."Mr. van der Luyden paused, but no one spoke. "Yes--it seems he tookher with him last night to Mrs. Lemuel Struthers's. Sillerton Jacksonhas just been to us with the foolish story, and Louisa was rathertroubled. So I thought the shortest way was to go straight to CountessOlenska and explain--by the merest hint, you know--how we feel in NewYork about certain things. I felt I might, without indelicacy, becausethe evening she dined with us she rather suggested ... rather let mesee that she would be grateful for guidance. And she WAS."

  Mr. van der Luyden looked about the room with what would have beenself-satisfaction on features less purged of the vulgar passions. Onhis face it became a mild benevolence which Mrs. Archer's countenancedutifully reflected.

  "How kind you both are, dear Henry--always! Newland will particularlyappreciate what you have done because of dear May and his newrelations."

  She shot an admonitory glance at her son, who said: "Immensely, sir.But I was sure you'd like Madame Olenska."

  Mr. van der Luyden looked at him with extreme gentleness. "I never askto my house, my dear Newland," he sa
id, "any one whom I do not like.And so I have just told Sillerton Jackson." With a glance at the clockhe 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 silencefell upon the Archer family.

  "Gracious--how romantic!" at last broke explosively from Janey. No oneknew exactly what inspired her elliptic comments, and her relations hadlong since given up trying to interpret them.

  Mrs. Archer shook her head with a sigh. "Provided it all turns out forthe best," she said, in the tone of one who knows how surely it willnot. "Newland, you must stay and see Sillerton Jackson when he comesthis evening: I really shan't know what to say to him."

  "Poor mother! But he won't come--" her son laughed, stooping to kissaway her frown.