The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton (the speed reading book TXT) 📗

come to town

for a few days from Skuytercliff, whither they had

precipitately fled at the announcement of Beaufort’s

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 Regina’s

shoes. It is just at such times that new people push

in and get a footing. It was owing to the epidemic of

chicken-pox 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

Jackson’s 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 drawing-room 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 Mingott’s carriage was seen

standing at Mrs. Beaufort’s door.” It was noticeable

that she no longer called the offending lady by her

Christian name.

 

May’s colour rose, and Mrs. Archer put in hastily:

“If it was, I’m convinced it was there without Mrs.

Mingott’s knowledge.”

 

“Ah, you think—?” Mrs. van der Luyden paused,

sighed, and glanced at her husband.

 

“I’m afraid,” Mr. van der Luyden said, “that Madame

Olenska’s 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

son’s.

 

“I’m sorry to think it of Madame Olenska,” said

Mrs. van der Luyden; and Mrs. Archer murmured:

“Ah, my dear—and after you’d 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 you’d asked

where Morny’s 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 Olenska’s foreign bringing-up may

make her less particular—”

 

“Ah,” the two elder ladies sighed.

 

“Still, to have kept her grandmother’s carriage at a

defaulter’s 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 Twenty-third Street.

 

“Of course I’ve always said that she looks at things

quite differently,” Mrs. Archer summed up.

 

A flush rose to May’s forehead. She looked across

the table at her husband, and said precipitately: “I’m

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 half-expected her to appear again in old Mrs. Mingott’s

box, but it remained empty; and he sat motionless, his

eyes fastened on it, till suddenly Madame Nilsson’s

pure soprano broke out into “M’ama, non m’ama … “

 

Archer turned to the stage, where, in the familiar

setting of giant roses and pen-wiper 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 newly-arrived “foreign”

cousin. As on that evening, she was all in white; and

Archer, who had not noticed what she wore, recognised

the blue-white 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 May’s 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

lilies-of-the-valley 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 couldn’t

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 self-controlled 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 semi-circular passage at the back of the house,

and opened the door of Mrs. van der Luyden’s box as

if it had been a gate into the unknown.

 

“M’ama!” thrilled out the triumphant Marguerite;

and the occupants of the box looked up in surprise at

Archer’s 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.

 

“I’ve got a beastly headache; don’t tell any one, but

come home, won’t 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 Faust’s 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. “I’m so sorry you don’t feel well. I’m afraid they’ve

been overworking you again at the office.”

 

“No—it’s 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 I’ve torn it!” she

exclaimed. She bent to gather up a mud-stained 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 hadn’t 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 there’s 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 I’ve got to

tell you … about myself …”

 

She sat silent, without a movement or a tremor of

her