The Age of Innocence

  Book II

  XIX.

  The day was fresh, with a lively spring wind full of dust. All the oldladies in both families had got out their faded sables and yellowingermines, and the smell of camphor from the front pews almost smotheredthe faint spring scent of the lilies banking the altar.

  Newland Archer, at a signal from the sexton, had come out of the vestryand placed himself with his best man on the chancel step of GraceChurch.

  The signal meant that the brougham bearing the bride and her father wasin sight; but there was sure to be a considerable interval ofadjustment and consultation in the lobby, where the bridesmaids werealready hovering like a cluster of Easter blossoms. During thisunavoidable lapse of time the bridegroom, in proof of his eagerness,was expected to expose himself alone to the gaze of the assembledcompany; and Archer had gone through this formality as resignedly asthrough all the others which made of a nineteenth century New Yorkwedding a rite that seemed to belong to the dawn of history.Everything was equally easy--or equally painful, as one chose to putit--in the path he was committed to tread, and he had obeyed theflurried injunctions of his best man as piously as other bridegroomshad obeyed his own, in the days when he had guided them through thesame labyrinth.

  So far he was reasonably sure of having fulfilled all his obligations.The bridesmaids' eight bouquets of white lilac and lilies-of-the-valleyhad been sent in due time, as well as the gold and sapphiresleeve-links of the eight ushers and the best man's cat's-eyescarf-pin; Archer had sat up half the night trying to vary the wordingof his thanks for the last batch of presents from men friends andex-lady-loves; the fees for the Bishop and the Rector were safely inthe pocket of his best man; his own luggage was already at Mrs. MansonMingott's, where the wedding-breakfast was to take place, and so werethe travelling clothes into which he was to change; and a privatecompartment had been engaged in the train that was to carry the youngcouple to their unknown destination--concealment of the spot in whichthe bridal night was to be spent being one of the most sacred taboos ofthe prehistoric ritual.

  "Got the ring all right?" whispered young van der Luyden Newland, whowas inexperienced in the duties of a best man, and awed by the weightof 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 greywaistcoat, and assured himself that the little gold circlet (engravedinside: Newland to May, April ---, 187-) was in its place; then,resuming his former attitude, his tall hat and pearl-grey gloves withblack stitchings grasped in his left hand, he stood looking at the doorof the church.

  Overhead, Handel's March swelled pompously through the imitation stonevaulting, carrying on its waves the faded drift of the many weddings atwhich, with cheerful indifference, he had stood on the same chancelstep watching other brides float up the nave toward other bridegrooms.

  "How like a first night at the Opera!" he thought, recognising all thesame faces in the same boxes (no, pews), and wondering if, when theLast Trump sounded, Mrs. Selfridge Merry would be there with the sametowering ostrich feathers in her bonnet, and Mrs. Beaufort with thesame diamond earrings and the same smile--and whether suitableproscenium seats were already prepared for them in another world.

  After that there was still time to review, one by one, the familiarcountenances in the first rows; the women's sharp with curiosity andexcitement, the men's sulky with the obligation of having to put ontheir frock-coats before luncheon, and fight for food at thewedding-breakfast.

  "Too bad the breakfast is at old Catherine's," the bridegroom couldfancy Reggie Chivers saying. "But I'm told that Lovell Mingottinsisted on its being cooked by his own chef, so it ought to be good ifone can only get at it." And he could imagine Sillerton Jackson addingwith authority: "My dear fellow, haven't you heard? It's to be servedat small tables, in the new English fashion."

  Archer's eyes lingered a moment on the left-hand pew, where his mother,who had entered the church on Mr. Henry van der Luyden's arm, satweeping softly under her Chantilly veil, her hands in her grandmother'sermine muff.

  "Poor Janey!" he thought, looking at his sister, "even by screwing herhead around she can see only the people in the few front pews; andthey're mostly dowdy Newlands and Dagonets."

  On the hither side of the white ribbon dividing off the seats reservedfor the families he saw Beaufort, tall and redfaced, scrutinising thewomen with his arrogant stare. Beside him sat his wife, all silverychinchilla and violets; and on the far side of the ribbon, LawrenceLefferts's sleekly brushed head seemed to mount guard over theinvisible deity of "Good Form" who presided at the ceremony.

  Archer wondered how many flaws Lefferts's keen eyes would discover inthe ritual of his divinity; then he suddenly recalled that he too hadonce thought such questions important. The things that had filled hisdays seemed now like a nursery parody of life, or like the wrangles ofmediaeval schoolmen over metaphysical terms that nobody had everunderstood. A stormy discussion as to whether the wedding presentsshould be "shown" had darkened the last hours before the wedding; andit seemed inconceivable to Archer that grown-up people should workthemselves into a state of agitation over such trifles, and that thematter should have been decided (in the negative) by Mrs. Welland'ssaying, with indignant tears: "I should as soon turn the reportersloose in my house." Yet there was a time when Archer had had definiteand rather aggressive opinions on all such problems, and wheneverything concerning the manners and customs of his little tribe hadseemed to him fraught with world-wide significance.

  "And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were livingsomewhere, and real things happening to them ..."

  "THERE THEY COME!" breathed the best man excitedly; but the bridegroomknew better.

  The cautious opening of the door of the church meant only that Mr.Brown the livery-stable keeper (gowned in black in his intermittentcharacter of sexton) was taking a preliminary survey of the scenebefore marshalling his forces. The door was softly shut again; thenafter another interval it swung majestically open, and a murmur ranthrough the church: "The family!"

  Mrs. Welland came first, on the arm of her eldest son. Her large pinkface was appropriately solemn, and her plum-coloured satin with paleblue side-panels, and blue ostrich plumes in a small satin bonnet, metwith general approval; but before she had settled herself with astately rustle in the pew opposite Mrs. Archer's the spectators werecraning their necks to see who was coming after her. Wild rumours hadbeen abroad the day before to the effect that Mrs. Manson Mingott, inspite of her physical disabilities, had resolved on being present atthe ceremony; and the idea was so much in keeping with her sportingcharacter that bets ran high at the clubs as to her being able to walkup the nave and squeeze into a seat. It was known that she hadinsisted on sending her own carpenter to look into the possibility oftaking down the end panel of the front pew, and to measure the spacebetween the seat and the front; but the result had been discouraging,and for one anxious day her family had watched her dallying with theplan of being wheeled up the nave in her enormous Bath chair andsitting enthroned in it at the foot of the chancel.

  The idea of this monstrous exposure of her person was so painful to herrelations that they could have covered with gold the ingenious personwho suddenly discovered that the chair was too wide to pass between theiron uprights of the awning which extended from the church door to thecurbstone. The idea of doing away with this awning, and revealing thebride to the mob of dressmakers and newspaper reporters who stoodoutside fighting to get near the joints of the canvas, exceeded evenold Catherine's courage, though for a moment she had weighed thepossibility. "Why, they might take a photograph of my child AND PUT ITIN THE PAPERS!" Mrs. Welland exclaimed when her mother's last plan washinted to her; and from this unthinkable indecency the clan recoiledwith a collective shudder. The ancestress had had to give in; but herconcession was bought only by the promise that the wedding-breakfastshould take place under her roof, though (as the Washington Squareconnect
ion said) with the Wellands' house in easy reach it was hard tohave to make a special price with Brown to drive one to the other endof nowhere.

  Though all these transactions had been widely reported by the Jacksonsa sporting minority still clung to the belief that old Catherine wouldappear in church, and there was a distinct lowering of the temperaturewhen she was found to have been replaced by her daughter-in-law. Mrs.Lovell Mingott had the high colour and glassy stare induced in ladiesof her age and habit by the effort of getting into a new dress; butonce the disappointment occasioned by her mother-in-law'snon-appearance had subsided, it was agreed that her black Chantillyover lilac satin, with a bonnet of Parma violets, formed the happiestcontrast to Mrs. Welland's blue and plum-colour. Far different was theimpression produced by the gaunt and mincing lady who followed on Mr.Mingott's arm, in a wild dishevelment of stripes and fringes andfloating scarves; and as this last apparition glided into view Archer'sheart contracted and stopped beating.

  He had taken it for granted that the Marchioness Manson was still inWashington, where she had gone some four weeks previously with herniece, Madame Olenska. It was generally understood that their abruptdeparture was due to Madame Olenska's desire to remove her aunt fromthe baleful eloquence of Dr. Agathon Carver, who had nearly succeededin enlisting her as a recruit for the Valley of Love; and in thecircumstances no one had expected either of the ladies to return forthe wedding. For a moment Archer stood with his eyes fixed on Medora'sfantastic figure, straining to see who came behind her; but the littleprocession was at an end, for all the lesser members of the family hadtaken their seats, and the eight tall ushers, gathering themselvestogether like birds or insects preparing for some migratory manoeuvre,were already slipping through the side doors into the lobby.

  "Newland--I say: SHE'S 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, theBishop, the Rector and two white-winged assistants were hovering aboutthe flower-banked altar, and the first chords of the Spohr symphonywere strewing their flower-like notes before the bride.

  Archer opened his eyes (but could they really have been shut, as heimagined?), and felt his heart beginning to resume its usual task. Themusic, the scent of the lilies on the altar, the vision of the cloud oftulle and orange-blossoms floating nearer and nearer, the sight of Mrs.Archer's face suddenly convulsed with happy sobs, the low benedictorymurmur of the Rector's voice, the ordered evolutions of the eight pinkbridesmaids and the eight black ushers: all these sights, sounds andsensations, so familiar in themselves, so unutterably strange andmeaningless in his new relation to them, were confusedly mingled in hisbrain.

  "My God," he thought, "HAVE I got the ring?"--and once more he wentthrough the bridegroom's convulsive gesture.

  Then, in a moment, May was beside him, such radiance streaming from herthat it sent a faint warmth through his numbness, and he straightenedhimself and smiled into her eyes.

  "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here," the Rector began ...

  The ring was on her hand, the Bishop's benediction had been given, thebridesmaids were a-poise to resume their place in the procession, andthe organ was showing preliminary symptoms of breaking out into theMendelssohn March, without which no newly-wedded couple had everemerged 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 theunknown. What was it that had sent him there, he wondered? Perhapsthe glimpse, among the anonymous spectators in the transept, of a darkcoil of hair under a hat which, a moment later, revealed itself asbelonging to an unknown lady with a long nose, so laughably unlike theperson whose image she had evoked that he asked himself if he werebecoming subject to hallucinations.

  And now he and his wife were pacing slowly down the nave, carriedforward on the light Mendelssohn ripples, the spring day beckoning tothem through widely opened doors, and Mrs. Welland's chestnuts, withbig white favours on their frontlets, curvetting and showing off at thefar end of the canvas tunnel.

  The footman, who had a still bigger white favour on his lapel, wrappedMay's white cloak about her, and Archer jumped into the brougham at herside. She turned to him with a triumphant smile and their handsclasped under her veil.

  "Darling!" Archer said--and suddenly the same black abyss yawned beforehim and he felt himself sinking into it, deeper and deeper, while hisvoice rambled on smoothly and cheerfully: "Yes, of course I thoughtI'd lost the ring; no wedding would be complete if the poor devil of abridegroom didn't go through that. But you DID keep me waiting, youknow! I had time to think of every horror that might possibly happen."

  She surprised him by turning, in full Fifth Avenue, and flinging herarms 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 theyoung couple, after the wedding-breakfast, had ample time to put ontheir travelling-clothes, descend the wide Mingott stairs betweenlaughing bridesmaids and weeping parents, and get into the broughamunder the traditional shower of rice and satin slippers; and there wasstill half an hour left in which to drive to the station, buy the lastweeklies at the bookstall with the air of seasoned travellers, andsettle themselves in the reserved compartment in which May's maid hadalready placed her dove-coloured travelling cloak and glaringly newdressing-bag from London.

  The old du Lac aunts at Rhinebeck had put their house at the disposalof the bridal couple, with a readiness inspired by the prospect ofspending a week in New York with Mrs. Archer; and Archer, glad toescape 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 childishlyamused at the vain efforts of the eight bridesmaids to discover wheretheir mysterious retreat was situated. It was thought "very English"to have a country-house lent to one, and the fact gave a last touch ofdistinction to what was generally conceded to be the most brilliantwedding of the year; but where the house was no one was permitted toknow, except the parents of bride and groom, who, when taxed with theknowledge, pursed their lips and said mysteriously: "Ah, they didn'ttell us--" which was manifestly true, since there was no need to.

  Once they were settled in their compartment, and the train, shaking offthe endless wooden suburbs, had pushed out into the pale landscape ofspring, talk became easier than Archer had expected. May was still, inlook and tone, the simple girl of yesterday, eager to compare noteswith him as to the incidents of the wedding, and discussing them asimpartially as a bridesmaid talking it all over with an usher. Atfirst Archer had fancied that this detachment was the disguise of aninward tremor; but her clear eyes revealed only the most tranquilunawareness. She was alone for the first time with her husband; buther husband was only the charming comrade of yesterday. There was noone whom she liked as much, no one whom she trusted as completely, andthe culminating "lark" of the whole delightful adventure of engagementand marriage was to be off with him alone on a journey, like a grownupperson, 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 ofimagination. But he remembered how, even then, she had surprised himby dropping back to inexpressive girlishness as soon as her consciencehad been eased of its burden; and he saw that she would probably gothrough life dealing to the best of her ability with each experience asit came, but never anticipating any by so much as a stolen glance.

  Perhaps that faculty of unawareness was what gave her eyes theirtransparency, and her face the look of representing a type rather thana person; as if she might have been chosen to pose for a Civic Virtueor a Greek goddess. The blood that ran so close to her fair skin mighthave been a preserving fluid rather than a ravaging element; yet herlook of
indestructible youthfulness made her seem neither hard nordull, but only primitive and pure. In the thick of this meditationArcher suddenly felt himself looking at her with the startled gaze of astranger, and plunged into a reminiscence of the wedding-breakfast andof Granny Mingott's immense and triumphant pervasion of it.

  May settled down to frank enjoyment of the subject. "I was surprised,though--weren't you?--that aunt Medora came after all. Ellen wrotethat they were neither of them well enough to take the journey; I dowish it had been she who had recovered! Did you see the exquisite oldlace she sent me?"

  He had known that the moment must come sooner or later, but he hadsomewhat 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 hiscarefully built-up world would tumble about him like a house of cards.

  "Aren't you tired? It will be good to have some tea when wearrive--I'm sure the aunts have got everything beautifully ready," herattled on, taking her hand in his; and her mind rushed away instantlyto the magnificent tea and coffee service of Baltimore silver which theBeauforts had sent, and which "went" so perfectly with uncle LovellMingott's trays and side-dishes.

  In the spring twilight the train stopped at the Rhinebeck station, andthey walked along the platform to the waiting carriage.

  "Ah, how awfully kind of the van der Luydens--they've sent their manover from Skuytercliff to meet us," Archer exclaimed, as a sedateperson out of livery approached them and relieved the maid of her bags.

  "I'm extremely sorry, sir," said this emissary, "that a little accidenthas occurred at the Miss du Lacs': a leak in the water-tank. Ithappened yesterday, and Mr. van der Luyden, who heard of it thismorning, sent a housemaid up by the early train to get the Patroon'shouse ready. It will be quite comfortable, I think you'll find, sir;and the Miss du Lacs have sent their cook over, so that it will beexactly the same as if you'd been at Rhinebeck."

  Archer stared at the speaker so blankly that he repeated in still moreapologetic accents: "It'll be exactly the same, sir, I do assureyou--" and May's eager voice broke out, covering the embarrassedsilence: "The same as Rhinebeck? The Patroon's house? But it will bea hundred thousand times better--won't it, Newland? It's too dear andkind of Mr. van der Luyden to have thought of it."

  And as they drove off, with the maid beside the coachman, and theirshining bridal bags on the seat before them, she went on excitedly:"Only fancy, I've never been inside it--have you? The van der Luydensshow it to so few people. But they opened it for Ellen, it seems, andshe told me what a darling little place it was: she says it's the onlyhouse she's seen in America that she could imagine being perfectlyhappy in."

  "Well--that's what we're going to be, isn't it?" cried her husbandgaily; and she answered with her boyish smile: "Ah, it's just our luckbeginning--the wonderful luck we're always going to have together!"