The Age of Innocence, Page 23

  XXIII.

  The next morning, when Archer got out of the Fall River train, heemerged upon a steaming midsummer Boston. The streets near the stationwere full of the smell of beer and coffee and decaying fruit and ashirt-sleeved populace moved through them with the intimate abandon ofboarders going down the passage to the bathroom.

  Archer found a cab and drove to the Somerset Club for breakfast. Eventhe fashionable quarters had the air of untidy domesticity to which noexcess of heat ever degrades the European cities. Care-takers incalico lounged on the door-steps of the wealthy, and the Common lookedlike a pleasure-ground on the morrow of a Masonic picnic. If Archerhad tried to imagine Ellen Olenska in improbable scenes he could nothave called up any into which it was more difficult to fit her thanthis heat-prostrated and deserted Boston.

  He breakfasted with appetite and method, beginning with a slice ofmelon, and studying a morning paper while he waited for his toast andscrambled eggs. A new sense of energy and activity had possessed himever since he had announced to May the night before that he hadbusiness in Boston, and should take the Fall River boat that night andgo on to New York the following evening. It had always been understoodthat he would return to town early in the week, and when he got backfrom his expedition to Portsmouth a letter from the office, which fatehad conspicuously placed on a corner of the hall table, sufficed tojustify his sudden change of plan. He was even ashamed of the easewith which the whole thing had been done: it reminded him, for anuncomfortable moment, of Lawrence Lefferts's masterly contrivances forsecuring his freedom. But this did not long trouble him, for he wasnot in an analytic mood.

  After breakfast he smoked a cigarette and glanced over the CommercialAdvertiser. While he was thus engaged two or three men he knew camein, and the usual greetings were exchanged: it was the same world afterall, though he had such a queer sense of having slipped through themeshes of time and space.

  He looked at his watch, and finding that it was half-past nine got upand went into the writing-room. There he wrote a few lines, andordered a messenger to take a cab to the Parker House and wait for theanswer. He then sat down behind another newspaper and tried tocalculate how long it would take a cab to get to the Parker House.

  "The lady was out, sir," he suddenly heard a waiter's voice at hiselbow; and he stammered: "Out?--" as if it were a word in a strangelanguage.

  He got up and went into the hall. It must be a mistake: she could notbe out at that hour. He flushed with anger at his own stupidity: whyhad he not sent the note as soon as he arrived?

  He found his hat and stick and went forth into the street. The cityhad suddenly become as strange and vast and empty as if he were atraveller from distant lands. For a moment he stood on the door-stephesitating; then he decided to go to the Parker House. What if themessenger had been misinformed, and she were still there?

  He started to walk across the Common; and on the first bench, under atree, he saw her sitting. She had a grey silk sunshade over herhead--how could he ever have imagined her with a pink one? As heapproached he was struck by her listless attitude: she sat there as ifshe had nothing else to do. He saw her drooping profile, and the knotof hair fastened low in the neck under her dark hat, and the longwrinkled glove on the hand that held the sunshade. He came a step ortwo nearer, and she turned and looked at him.

  "Oh"--she said; and for the first time he noticed a startled look onher face; but in another moment it gave way to a slow smile of wonderand contentment.

  "Oh"--she murmured again, on a different note, as he stood looking downat her; and without rising she made a place for him on the bench.

  "I'm here on business--just got here," Archer explained; and, withoutknowing why, he suddenly began to feign astonishment at seeing her."But what on earth are you doing in this wilderness?" He had really noidea what he was saying: he felt as if he were shouting at her acrossendless distances, and she might vanish again before he could overtakeher.

  "I? Oh, I'm here on business too," she answered, turning her headtoward him so that they were face to face. The words hardly reachedhim: he was aware only of her voice, and of the startling fact that notan echo of it had remained in his memory. He had not even rememberedthat it was low-pitched, with a faint roughness on the consonants.

  "You do your hair differently," he said, his heart beating as if he haduttered something irrevocable.

  "Differently? No--it's only that I do it as best I can when I'mwithout Nastasia."

  "Nastasia; but isn't she with you?"

  "No; I'm alone. For two days it was not worth while to bring her."

  "You're alone--at the Parker House?"

  She looked at him with a flash of her old malice. "Does it strike youas dangerous?"

  "No; not dangerous--"

  "But unconventional? I see; I suppose it is." She considered amoment. "I hadn't thought of it, because I've just done something somuch more unconventional." The faint tinge of irony lingered in hereyes. "I've just refused to take back a sum of money--that belonged tome."

  Archer sprang up and moved a step or two away. She had furled herparasol and sat absently drawing patterns on the gravel. Presently hecame 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 nowand then."

  There was another interval of silence. Archer's heart had slammeditself shut in the queer way it had, and he sat vainly groping for aword.

  "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 he's 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 don'tthink I've had more than one letter from him." The allusion broughtthe colour to her cheek, and it reflected itself in Archer's vividblush.

  "Why does he never write?"

  "Why should he? What does one have secretaries for?"

  The young man's blush deepened. She had pronounced the word as if ithad no more significance than any other in her vocabulary. For amoment it was on the tip of his tongue to ask: "Did he send hissecretary, then?" But the remembrance of Count Olenski's only letterto his wife was too present to him. He paused again, and then tookanother 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 onwaiting 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 hotel's too stifling. I'mtaking the afternoon train back to Portsmouth."

  They sat silent, not looking at each other, but straight ahead at thepeople passing along the path. Finally she turned her eyes again tohis face and said: "You're not changed."

  He felt like answering: "I was, till I saw you again;" but instead hestood up abruptly and glanced about him at the untidy sweltering park.

  "This is horrible. Why shouldn't we go out a little on the bay?There's a breeze, and it will be cooler. We might take the steamboatdown to Point Arley." She glanced up at him hesitatingly and he wenton: "On a Monday morning there won't be anybody on the boat. My traindoesn't leave till evening: I'm going back to New York. Why shouldn'twe?" he insisted, looking down at her; and suddenly he broke out:"Haven't we done all we could?"

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nbsp; "Oh"--she murmured again. She stood up and reopened her sunshade,glancing about her as if to take counsel of the scene, and assureherself of the impossibility of remaining in it. Then her eyesreturned to his face. "You mustn't say things like that to me," shesaid.

  "I'll say anything you like; or nothing. I won't open my mouth unlessyou tell me to. What harm can it do to anybody? All I want is tolisten to you," he stammered.

  She drew out a little gold-faced watch on an enamelled chain. "Oh,don't calculate," he broke out; "give me the day! I want to get youaway from that man. At what time was he coming?"

  Her colour rose again. "At eleven."

  "Then you must come at once."

  "You needn't be afraid--if I don't come."

  "Nor you either--if you do. I swear I only want to hear about you, toknow what you've been doing. It's a hundred years since we've met--itmay be another hundred before we meet again."

  She still wavered, her anxious eyes on his face. "Why didn't you comedown to the beach to fetch me, the day I was at Granny's?" she asked.

  "Because you didn't look round--because you didn't know I was there. Iswore I wouldn't unless you looked round." He laughed as thechildishness of the confession struck him.

  "But I didn't look round on purpose."

  "On purpose?"

  "I knew you were there; when you drove in I recognised the ponies. SoI 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 seeit's no use. I may as well tell you," he added, "that the business Icame here for was just to find you. But, look here, we must start orwe shall miss our boat."

  "Our boat?" She frowned perplexedly, and then smiled. "Oh, but I mustgo back to the hotel first: I must leave a note--"

  "As many notes as you please. You can write here." He drew out anote-case and one of the new stylographic pens. "I've even got anenvelope--you see how everything's predestined! There--steady thething on your knee, and I'll get the pen going in a second. They haveto be humoured; wait--" He banged the hand that held the pen againstthe back of the bench. "It's like jerking down the mercury in athermometer: just a trick. Now try--"

  She laughed, and bending over the sheet of paper which he had laid onhis note-case, began to write. Archer walked away a few steps, staringwith radiant unseeing eyes at the passersby, who, in their turn, pausedto stare at the unwonted sight of a fashionably-dressed lady writing anote 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 caughtsight of the plush-lined "herdic" which had carried his note to theParker House, and whose driver was reposing from this effort by bathinghis brow at the corner hydrant.

  "I told you everything was predestined! Here's a cab for us. Yousee!" They laughed, astonished at the miracle of picking up a publicconveyance at that hour, and in that unlikely spot, in a city wherecab-stands were still a "foreign" novelty.

  Archer, looking at his watch, saw that there was time to drive to theParker House before going to the steamboat landing. They rattledthrough 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?" heasked; but Madame Olenska, shaking her head, sprang out and disappearedthrough the glazed doors. It was barely half-past ten; but what if theemissary, impatient for her reply, and not knowing how else to employhis time, were already seated among the travellers with cooling drinksat 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 witheyes like Nastasia's offered to shine his boots, and an Irish matron tosell him peaches; and every few moments the doors opened to let out hotmen with straw hats tilted far back, who glanced at him as they wentby. He marvelled that the door should open so often, and that all thepeople it let out should look so like each other, and so like all theother hot men who, at that hour, through the length and breadth of theland, were passing continuously in and out of the swinging doors ofhotels.

  And then, suddenly, came a face that he could not relate to the otherfaces. He caught but a flash of it, for his pacings had carried him tothe farthest point of his beat, and it was in turning back to the hotelthat he saw, in a group of typical countenances--the lank and weary,the round and surprised, the lantern-jawed and mild--this other facethat was so many more things at once, and things so different. It wasthat of a young man, pale too, and half-extinguished by the heat, orworry, or both, but somehow, quicker, vivider, more conscious; orperhaps seeming so because he was so different. Archer hung a momenton a thin thread of memory, but it snapped and floated off with thedisappearing face--apparently that of some foreign business man,looking doubly foreign in such a setting. He vanished in the stream ofpassersby, and Archer resumed his patrol.

  He did not care to be seen watch in hand within view of the hotel, andhis unaided reckoning of the lapse of time led him to conclude that, ifMadame Olenska was so long in reappearing, it could only be because shehad met the emissary and been waylaid by him. At the thought Archer'sapprehension rose to anguish.

  "If she doesn't come soon I'll go in and find her," he said.

  The doors swung open again and she was at his side. They got into theherdic, and as it drove off he took out his watch and saw that she hadbeen absent just three minutes. In the clatter of loose windows thatmade talk impossible they bumped over the disjointed cobblestones tothe wharf.

  Seated side by side on a bench of the half-empty boat they found thatthey had hardly anything to say to each other, or rather that what theyhad to say communicated itself best in the blessed silence of theirrelease and their isolation.

  As the paddle-wheels began to turn, and wharves and shipping to recedethrough the veil of heat, it seemed to Archer that everything in theold familiar world of habit was receding also. He longed to ask MadameOlenska if she did not have the same feeling: the feeling that theywere starting on some long voyage from which they might never return.But he was afraid to say it, or anything else that might disturb thedelicate balance of her trust in him. In reality he had no wish tobetray that trust. There had been days and nights when the memory oftheir kiss had burned and burned on his lips; the day before even, onthe drive to Portsmouth, the thought of her had run through him likefire; but now that she was beside him, and they were drifting forthinto this unknown world, they seemed to have reached the kind of deepernearness that a touch may sunder.

  As the boat left the harbour and turned seaward a breeze stirred aboutthem and the bay broke up into long oily undulations, then into ripplestipped with spray. The fog of sultriness still hung over the city, butahead lay a fresh world of ruffled waters, and distant promontorieswith light-houses in the sun. Madame Olenska, leaning back against theboat-rail, drank in the coolness between parted lips. She had wound along veil about her hat, but it left her face uncovered, and Archer wasstruck by the tranquil gaiety of her expression. She seemed to taketheir adventure as a matter of course, and to be neither in fear ofunexpected encounters, nor (what was worse) unduly elated by theirpossibility.

  In the bare dining-room of the inn, which he had hoped they would haveto themselves, they found a strident party of innocent-looking youngmen and women--school-teachers on a holiday, the landlord toldthem--and Archer's heart sank at the idea of having to talk throughtheir noise.

  "This is hopeless--I'll ask for a private room," he said; and MadameOlenska, without offering any objection, waited while he went in searchof it. The room opened on a long wooden verandah, with the sea comingin at the windows. It was bare and cool, with a table covered with acoarse checkered cloth and adorned by a bottle of pickles and ablueberry pie under a cage. No more guileles
s-looking cabinetparticulier ever offered its shelter to a clandestine couple: Archerfancied he saw the sense of its reassurance in the faintly amused smilewith which Madame Olenska sat down opposite to him. A woman who hadrun away from her husband--and reputedly with another man--was likelyto have mastered the art of taking things for granted; but something inthe quality of her composure took the edge from his irony. By being soquiet, so unsurprised and so simple she had managed to brush away theconventions and make him feel that to seek to be alone was the naturalthing for two old friends who had so much to say to each other....