The Glimpses of the Moon - Edith Wharton (short novels in english txt) 📗

deepened singularly. “But, Susy darling,

then if you’re alone—and out of a job, just for the moment?”

 

Susy smiled. “Well, I’m not sure.”

 

“Oh, but if you are, darling, and you would come to Ruan! I

know Fred asked you didn’t he? And he told me that both you and

Nick had refused. He was awfully huffed at your not coming; but

I suppose that was because Nick had other plans. We couldn’t

have him now, because there’s no room for another gun; but since

he’s not here, and you’re free, why you know, dearest, don’t

you, how we’d love to have you? Fred would be too glad—too

outrageously glad—but you don’t much mind Fred’s love-making,

do you? And you’d be such a help to me—if that’s any argument!

With that big house full of men, and people flocking over every

night to dine, and Fred caring only for sport, and Nerone simply

loathing it and ridiculing it, and not a minute to myself to try

to keep him in a good humour …. Oh, Susy darling, don’t say

no, but let me telephone at once for a place in the train to

morrow night!”

 

Susy leaned back, letting the ash lengthen on her cigarette.

How familiar, how hatefully familiar, was that old appeal!

Ursula felt the pressing need of someone to flirt with Fred for

a few weeks … and here was the very person she needed. Susy

shivered at the thought. She had never really meant to go to

Ruan. She had simply used the moor as a pretext when Violet

Melrose had gently put her out of doors. Rather than do what

Ursula asked she would borrow a few hundred pounds of Strefford,

as he had suggested, and then look about for some temporary

occupation until—

 

Until she became Lady Altringham? Well, perhaps. At any rate,

she was not going back to slave for Ursula.

 

She shook her head with a faint smile. “I’m so sorry, Ursula:

of course I want awfully to oblige you—”

 

Mrs. Gillow’s gaze grew reproachful. “I should have supposed

you would,” she murmured. Susy, meeting her eyes, looked into

them down a long vista of favours bestowed, and perceived that

Ursula was not the woman to forget on which side the obligation

lay between them.

 

Susy hesitated: she remembered the weeks of ecstasy she had

owed to the Gillows’ wedding cheque, and it hurt her to appear

ungrateful.

 

“If I could, Ursula … but really … I’m not free at the

moment.” She paused, and then took an abrupt decision. “The

fact is, I’m waiting here to see Strefford.”

 

“Strefford’ Lord Altringham?” Ursula stared. “Ah, yes-I

remember. You and he used to be great friends, didn’t you?”

Her roving attention deepened …. But if Susy were waiting to

see Lord Altringham—one of the richest men in England!

Suddenly Ursula opened her gold-meshed bag and snatched a

miniature diary from it.

 

“But wait a moment—yes, it is next week! I knew it was next

week he’s coming to Ruan! But, you darling, that makes

everything all right. You’ll send him a wire at once, and come

with me tomorrow, and meet him there instead of in this nasty

sloppy desert …. Oh, Susy, if you knew how hard life is for

me in Scotland between the Prince and Fred you couldn’t possibly

say no!”

 

Susy still wavered; but, after all, if Strefford were really

bound for Ruan, why not see him there, agreeably and at leisure,

instead of spending a dreary day with him in roaming the wet

London streets, or screaming at him through the rattle of a

restaurant orchestra? She knew he would not be likely to

postpone his visit to Ruan in order to linger in London with

her: such concessions had never been his way, and were less

than ever likely to be, now that he could do so thoroughly and

completely as he pleased.

 

For the first time she fully understood how different his

destiny had become. Now of course all his days and hours were

mapped out in advance: invitations assailed him, opportunities

pressed on him, he had only to choose …. And the women! She

had never before thought of the women. All the girls in England

would be wanting to marry him, not to mention her own

enterprising compatriots. And there were the married women, who

were even more to be feared. Streff might, for the time, escape

marriage; though she could guess the power of persuasion, family

pressure, all the converging traditional influences he had so

often ridiculed, yet, as she knew, had never completely thrown

off …. Yes, those quiet invisible women at Altringham-his

uncle’s widow, his mother, the spinster sisters—it was not

impossible that, with tact and patience—and the stupidest women

could be tactful and patient on such occasions—they might

eventually persuade him that it was his duty, they might put

just the right young loveliness in his way …. But meanwhile,

now, at once, there were the married women. Ah, they wouldn’t

wait, they were doubtless laying their traps already! Susy

shivered at the thought. She knew too much about the way the

trick was done, had followed, too often, all the sinuosities of

such approaches. Not that they were very sinuous nowadays:

more often there was just a swoop and a pounce when the time

came; but she knew all the arts and the wiles that led up to it.

She knew them, oh, how she knew them—though with Streff, thank

heaven, she had never been called upon to exercise them! His

love was there for the asking: would she not be a fool to

refuse it?

 

Perhaps; though on that point her mind still wavered. But at

any rate she saw that, decidedly, it would be better to yield to

Ursula’s pressure; better to meet him at Ruan, in a congenial

setting, where she would have time to get her bearings, observe

what dangers threatened him, and make up her mind whether, after

all, it was to be her mission to save him from the other women.

 

“Well, if you like, then, Ursula ….”

 

“Oh, you angel, you! I’m so glad! We’ll go to the nearest post

office, and send off the wire ourselves.”

 

As they got into the motor Mrs. Gillow seized Susy’s arm with a

pleading pressure. “And you will let Fred make love to you a

little, won’t you, darling?”

XVIII

“BUT I can’t think,” said Ellie Vanderlyn earnestly, “why you

don’t announce your engagement before waiting for your divorce.

People are beginning to do it, I assure you—it’s so much

safer!”

 

Mrs. Vanderlyn, on the way back from St. Moritz to England, had

paused in Paris to renew the depleted wardrobe which, only two

months earlier, had filled so many trunks to bursting. Other

ladies, flocking there from all points of the globe for the same

purpose, disputed with her the Louis XVI suites of the Nouveau

Luxe, the pink-candled tables in the restaurant, the hours for

trying-on at the dressmakers’; and just because they were so

many, and all feverishly fighting to get the same things at the

same time, they were all excited, happy and at ease. It was the

most momentous period of the year: the height of the “dress

makers’ season.”

 

Mrs. Vanderlyn had run across Susy Lansing at one of the Rue de

la Paix openings, where rows of ladies wan with heat and emotion

sat for hours in rapt attention while spectral apparitions in

incredible raiment tottered endlessly past them on aching feet.

 

Distracted from the regal splendours of a chinchilla cloak by

the sense that another lady was also examining it, Mrs.

Vanderlyn turned in surprise at sight of Susy, whose head was

critically bent above the fur.

 

“Susy! I’d no idea you were here! I saw in the papers that you

were with the Gillows.” The customary embraces followed; then

Mrs. Vanderlyn, her eyes pursuing the matchless cloak as it

disappeared down a vista of receding mannequins, interrogated

sharply: “Are you shopping for Ursula? If you mean to order

that cloak for her I’d rather know.”

 

Susy smiled, and paused a moment before answering. During the

pause she took in all the exquisite details of Ellie Vanderlyn’s

perpetually youthful person, from the plumed crown of her head

to the perfect arch of her patent-leather shoes. At last she

said quietly: “No—to-day I’m shopping for myself.”

 

“Yourself? Yourself?” Mrs. Vanderlyn echoed with a stare of

incredulity.

 

“Yes; just for a change,” Susy serenely acknowledged.

 

“But the cloak—I meant the chinchilla cloak … the one with

the ermine lining ….”

 

“Yes; it is awfully good, isn’t it? But I mean to look

elsewhere before I decide.”

 

Ah, how often she had heard her friends use that phrase; and how

amusing it was, now, to see Ellie’s amazement as she heard it

tossed off in her own tone of contemptuous satiety! Susy was

becoming more and more dependent on such diversions; without

them her days, crowded as they were, would nevertheless have

dragged by heavily. But it still amused her to go to the big

dressmakers’, watch the mannequins sweep by, and be seen by her

friends superciliously examining all the most expensive dresses

in the procession. She knew the rumour was abroad that she and

Nick were to be divorced, and that Lord Altringham was “devoted”

to her. She neither confirmed nor denied the report: she just

let herself be luxuriously carried forward on its easy tide.

But although it was now three months since Nick had left the

Palazzo Vanderlyn she had not yet written to him-nor he to her.

 

Meanwhile, in spite of all that she packed into them, the days

passed more and more slowly, and the excitements she had counted

on no longer excited her. Strefford was hers: she knew that he

would marry her as soon as she was free. They had been together

at Ruan for ten days, and after that she had motored south with

him, stopping on the way to see Altringham, from which, at the

moment, his mourning relatives were absent.

 

At Altringham they had parted; and after one or two more visits

in England she had come back to Paris, where he was now about to

join her. After her few hours at Altringham she had understood

that he would wait for her as long as was necessary: the fear

of the “other women” had ceased to trouble her. But, perhaps

for that very reason, the future seemed less exciting than she

had expected. Sometimes she thought it was the sight of that

great house which had overwhelmed her: it was too vast, too

venerable, too like a huge monument built of ancient territorial

traditions and obligations. Perhaps it had been lived in for

too long by too many serious-minded and conscientious women:

somehow she could not picture it invaded by bridge and debts and

adultery. And yet that was what would have to be, of course …

she could hardly picture either Strefford or herself continuing

there the life of heavy county responsibilities, dull parties,

laborious duties, weekly church-going, and presiding over local

committees …. What a pity they couldn’t sell it and have a

little house on the Thames!

 

Nevertheless she was not sorry to let it be known that

Altringham was hers when she chose to take it. At times she

wondered whether Nick knew … whether rumours had reached him.

If they had, he had only his own letter to thank for it. He had

told her what course to pursue; and she was pursuing it.

 

For a moment the meeting with Ellie Vanderlyn had been a shock

to her; she had hoped never to see Ellie again. But now that

they were actually