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

face to face Susy perceived how dulled her

sensibilities were. In a few moments she had grown used to

Ellie, as she was growing used to everybody and to everything in

the old life she had returned to. What was the use of making

such a fuss about things? She and Mrs. Vanderlyn left the

dressmaker’s together, and after an absorbing session at a new

milliner’s were now taking tea in Ellie’s drawing-room at the

Nouveau Luxe.

 

Ellie, with her spoiled child’s persistency, had come back to

the question of the chinchilla cloak. It was the only one she

had seen that she fancied in the very least, and as she hadn’t a

decent fur garment left to her name she was naturally in

somewhat of a hurry … but, of course, if Susy had been

choosing that model for a friend ….

 

Susy, leaning back against her cushions, examined through half-closed lids Mrs. Vanderlyn’s small delicately-restored

countenance, which wore the same expression of childish

eagerness as when she discoursed of the young Davenant of the

moment. Once again Susy remarked that, in Ellie’s agitated

existence, every interest appeared to be on exactly the same

plane.

 

“The poor shivering dear,” she answered laughing, “of course it

shall have its nice warm winter cloak, and I’ll choose another

one instead.”

 

“Oh, you darling, you! If you would! Of course, whoever you

were ordering it for need never know ….”

 

“Ah, you can’t comfort yourself with that, I’m afraid. I’ve

already told you that I was ordering it for myself.” Susy

paused to savour to the full Ellie’s look of blank bewilderment;

then her amusement was checked by an indefinable change in her

friend’s expression.

 

“Oh, dearest—seriously? I didn’t know there was someone ….”

 

Susy flushed to the forehead. A horror of humiliation

overwhelmed her. That Ellie should dare to think that of her—

that anyone should dare to!

 

“Someone buying chinchilla cloaks for me? Thanks!” she flared

out. “I suppose I ought to be glad that the idea didn’t

immediately occur to you. At least there was a decent interval

of doubt ….” She stood up, laughing again, and began to

wander about the room. In the mirror above the mantel she

caught sight of her flushed angry face, and of Mrs. Vanderlyn’s

disconcerted stare. She turned toward her friend.

 

“I suppose everybody else will think it if you do; so perhaps

I’d better explain.” She paused, and drew a quick breath.

“Nick and I mean to part—have parted, in fact. He’s decided

that the whole thing was a mistake. He will probably; marry

again soon—and so shall I.”

 

She flung the avowal out breathlessly, in her nervous dread of

letting Ellie Vanderlyn think for an instant longer that any

other explanation was conceivable. She had not meant to be so

explicit; but once the words were spoken she was not altogether

sorry. Of course people would soon begin to wonder why she was

again straying about the world alone; and since it was by Nick’s

choice, why should she not say so? Remembering the burning

anguish of those last hours in Venice she asked herself what

possible consideration she owed to the man who had so humbled

her.

 

Ellie Vanderlyn glanced at her in astonishment. “You? You and

Nick—are going to part?” A light appeared to dawn on her.

“Ah—then that’s why he sent me back my pin, I suppose?”

 

“Your pin?” Susy wondered, not at once remembering.

 

“The poor little scarf-pin I gave him before I left Venice. He

sent it back almost at once, with the oddest note—just: ‘I

haven’t earned it, really.’ I couldn’t think why he didn’t care

for the pin. But, now I suppose it was because you and he had

quarrelled; though really, even so, I can’t see why he should

bear me a grudge ….”

 

Susy’s quick blood surged up. Nick had sent back the pin-the

fatal pin! And she, Susy, had kept the bracelet—locked it up

out of sight, shrunk away from the little packet whenever her

hand touched it in packing or unpacking—but never thought of

returning it, no, not once! Which of the two, she wondered, had

been right? Was it not an indirect slight to her that Nick

should fling back the gift to poor uncomprehending Ellie? Or

was it not rather another proof of his finer moral

sensitiveness! … And how could one tell, in their bewildering

world, “It was not because we’ve quarrelled; we haven’t

quarrelled,” she said slowly, moved by the sudden desire to

defend her privacy and Nick’s, to screen from every eye their

last bitter hour together. “We’ve simply decided that our

experiment was impossible-for two paupers.”

 

“Ah, well—of course we all felt that at the time. And now

somebody else wants to marry you! And it’s your trousseau you

were choosing that cloak for?” Ellie cried in incredulous

rapture; then she flung her arms about Susy’s shrinking

shoulders. “You lucky lucky girl! You clever clever darling!

But who on earth can he be?”

 

And it was then that Susy, for the first time, had pronounced

the name of Lord Altringham.

 

“Streff—Streff? Our dear old Streff, You mean to say he wants

to marry you?” As the news took possession of her mind Ellie

became dithyrambic. “But, my dearest, what a miracle of luck!

Of course I always knew he was awfully gone on you: Fred

Davenant used to say so, I remember … and even Nelson, who’s

so stupid about such things, noticed it in Venice …. But then

it was so different. No one could possibly have thought of

marrying him then; whereas now of course every woman is trying

for him. Oh, Susy, whatever you do, don’t miss your chance!

You can’t conceive of the wicked plotting and intriguing there

will be to get him—on all sides, and even where one least

suspects it. You don’t know what horrors women will do-and

even girls!” A shudder ran through her at the thought, and she

caught Susy’s wrists in vehement fingers. “But I can’t think,

my dear, why you don’t announce your engagement at once. People

are beginning to do it, I assure you—it’s so much safer!”

 

Susy looked at her, wondering. Not a word of sympathy for the

ruin of her brief bliss, not even a gleam of curiosity as to its

cause! No doubt Ellie Vanderlyn, like all Susy’s other friends,

had long since “discounted” the brevity of her dream, and

perhaps planned a sequel to it before she herself had seen the

glory fading. She and Nick had spent the greater part of their

few weeks together under Ellie Vanderlyn’s roof; but to Ellie,

obviously, the fact meant no more than her own escapade, at the

same moment, with young Davenant’s supplanter—the “bounder”

whom Strefford had never named. Her one thought for her friend

was that Susy should at last secure her prize—her incredible

prize. And therein at any rate Ellie showed the kind of cold

disinterestedness that raised her above the smiling perfidy of

the majority of her kind. At least her advice was sincere; and

perhaps it was wise. Why should Susy not let every one know

that she meant to marry Strefford as soon as the “formalities”

were fulfilled?

 

She did not immediately answer Mrs. Vanderlyn’s question; and

the latter, repeating it, added impatiently: “I don’t

understand you; if Nick agrees-”

 

“Oh, he agrees,” said Susy.

 

“Then what more do you want! Oh, Susy, if you’d only follow my

example!”

 

“Your example?” Susy paused, weighed the word, was struck by

something embarrassed, arch yet half-apologetic in her friend’s

expression. “Your example?” she repeated. “Why, Ellie, what on

earth do you mean? Not that you’re going to part from poor

Nelson?”

 

Mrs. Vanderlyn met her reproachful gaze with a crystalline

glance. “I don’t want to, heaven knows—poor dear Nelson! I

assure you I simply hate it. He’s always such an angel to

Clarissa … and then we’re used to each other. But what in the

world am I to do? Algie’s so rich, so appallingly rich, that I

have to be perpetually on the watch to keep other women away

from him—and it’s too exhausting ….”

 

“Algie?”

 

Mrs. Vanderlyn’s lovely eyebrows rose. “Algie: Algie

Bockheimer. Didn’t you know, I think he said you’ve dined with

his parents. Nobody else in the world is as rich as the

Bockheimers; and Algie’s their only child. Yes, it was with

him … with him I was so dreadfully happy last spring … and

now I’m in mortal terror of losing him. And I do assure you

there’s no other way of keeping them, when they’re as hideously

rich as that!”

 

Susy rose to her feet. A little shudder ran over her. She

remembered, now, having seen Algie Bockheimer at one of his

parents’ first entertainments, in their newly-inaugurated marble

halls in Fifth Avenue. She recalled his too faultless clothes

and his small glossy furtive countenance. She looked at Ellie

Vanderlyn with sudden scorn.

 

“I think you’re abominable,” she exclaimed.

 

The other’s perfect little face collapsed. “A-bo-minable?

A-bo-minable? Susy!”

 

“Yes … with Nelson … and Clarissa … and your past

together … and all the money you can possibly want … and

that man! Abominable.”

 

Ellie stood up trembling: she was not used to scenes, and they

disarranged her thoughts as much as her complexion.

 

“You’re very cruel, Susy—so cruel and dreadful that I hardly

know how to answer you,” she stammered. “But you simply don’t

know what you’re talking about. As if anybody ever had all the

money they wanted!” She wiped her dark-rimmed eyes with a

cautious handkerchief, glanced at herself in the mirror, and

added magnanimously: “But I shall try to forget what you’ve

said.”

XIX

JUST such a revolt as she had felt as a girl, such a disgusted

recoil from the standards and ideals of everybody about her as

had flung her into her mad marriage with Nick, now flamed in

Susy Lansing’s bosom.

 

How could she ever go back into that world again? How echo its

appraisals of life and bow down to its judgments? Alas, it was

only by marrying according to its standards that she could

escape such subjection. Perhaps the same thought had actuated

Nick: perhaps he had understood sooner than she that to attain

moral freedom they must both be above material cares.

Perhaps …

 

Her talk with Ellie Vanderlyn had left Susy so oppressed and

humiliated that she almost shrank from her meeting with

Altringham the next day. She knew that he was coming to Paris

for his final answer; he would wait as long as was necessary if

only she would consent to take immediate steps for a divorce.

She was staying at a modest hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain,

and had once more refused his suggestion that they should lunch

at the Nouveau Luxe, or at some fashionable restaurant of the

Boulevards. As before, she insisted on going to an out-of-the-way place near the Luxembourg, where the prices were moderate

enough for her own purse.

 

“I can’t understand,” Strefford objected, as they turned from

her hotel door toward this obscure retreat, “why you insist on

giving me bad food, and depriving me of the satisfaction of

being seen with you. Why must we be so dreadfully clandestine?

Don’t people know by this time that we’re to be married?”

 

Susy winced a little: she wondered if the word would always

sound so unnatural on his lips.

 

“No,” she said, with a laugh, “they simply think, for the

present, that you’re giving me pearls and chinchilla cloaks.”

 

He wrinkled his brows good-humouredly. “Well, so I would, with

joy—at this particular minute. Don’t you think perhaps you’d

better take advantage of it?