The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton (phonics reader .txt) 📗

her sense of the collective indifference came the acuter pang of hopes deceived. Disinherited⁠—she had been disinherited⁠—and for Grace Stepney! She met Gerty’s lamentable eyes, fixed on her in a despairing effort at consolation, and the look brought her to herself. There was something to be done before she left the house: to be done with all the nobility she knew how to put into such gestures. She advanced to the group about Miss Stepney, and holding out her hand said simply: “Dear Grace, I am so glad.”

The other ladies had fallen back at her approach, and a space created itself about her. It widened as she turned to go, and no one advanced to fill it up. She paused a moment, glancing about her, calmly taking the measure of her situation. She heard someone ask a question about the date of the will; she caught a fragment of the lawyer’s answer⁠—something about a sudden summons, and an “earlier instrument.” Then the tide of dispersal began to drift past her; Mrs. Jack Stepney and Mrs. Herbert Melson stood on the doorstep awaiting their motor; a sympathizing group escorted Grace Stepney to the cab it was felt to be fitting she should take, though she lived but a street or two away; and Miss Bart and Gerty found themselves almost alone in the purple drawing-room, which more than ever, in its stuffy dimness, resembled a well-kept family vault, in which the last corpse had just been decently deposited.

In Gerty Farish’s sitting-room, whither a hansom had carried the two friends, Lily dropped into a chair with a faint sound of laughter: it struck her as a humorous coincidence that her aunt’s legacy should so nearly represent the amount of her debt to Trenor. The need of discharging that debt had reasserted itself with increased urgency since her return to America, and she spoke her first thought in saying to the anxiously hovering Gerty: “I wonder when the legacies will be paid.”

But Miss Farish could not pause over the legacies; she broke into a larger indignation. “Oh, Lily, it’s unjust; it’s cruel⁠—Grace Stepney must feel she has no right to all that money!”

“Anyone who knew how to please Aunt Julia has a right to her money,” Miss Bart rejoined philosophically.

“But she was devoted to you⁠—she led everyone to think⁠—” Gerty checked herself in evident embarrassment, and Miss Bart turned to her with a direct look. “Gerty, be honest: this will was made only six weeks ago. She had heard of my break with the Dorsets?”

“Everyone heard, of course, that there had been some disagreement⁠—some misunderstanding⁠—”

“Did she hear that Bertha turned me off the yacht?”

“Lily!”

“That was what happened, you know. She said I was trying to marry George Dorset. She did it to make him think she was jealous. Isn’t that what she told Gwen Stepney?”

“I don’t know⁠—I don’t listen to such horrors.”

“I must listen to them⁠—I must know where I stand.” She paused, and again sounded a faint note of derision. “Did you notice the women? They were afraid to snub me while they thought I was going to get the money⁠—afterward they scuttled off as if I had the plague.” Gerty remained silent, and she continued: “I stayed on to see what would happen. They took their cue from Gwen Stepney and Lulu Melson⁠—I saw them watching to see what Gwen would do.⁠—Gerty, I must know just what is being said of me.”

“I tell you I don’t listen⁠—”

“One hears such things without listening.” She rose and laid her resolute hands on Miss Farish’s shoulders. “Gerty, are people going to cut me?”

“Your friends, Lily⁠—how can you think it?”

“Who are one’s friends at such a time? Who, but you, you poor trustful darling? And heaven knows what you suspect me of!” She kissed Gerty with a whimsical murmur. “You’d never let it make any difference⁠—but then you’re fond of criminals, Gerty! How about the irreclaimable ones, though? For I’m absolutely impenitent, you know.”

She drew herself up to the full height of her slender majesty, towering like some dark angel of defiance above the troubled Gerty, who could only falter out: “Lily, Lily⁠—how can you laugh about such things?”

“So as not to weep, perhaps. But no⁠—I’m not of the tearful order. I discovered early that crying makes my nose red, and the knowledge has helped me through several painful episodes.” She took a restless turn about the room, and then, reseating herself, lifted the bright mockery of her eyes to Gerty’s anxious countenance.

“I shouldn’t have minded, you know, if I’d got the money⁠—” and at Miss Farish’s protesting “Oh!” she repeated calmly: “Not a straw, my dear; for, in the first place, they wouldn’t have quite dared to ignore me; and if they had, it wouldn’t have mattered, because I should have been independent of them. But now⁠—!” The irony faded from her eyes, and she bent a clouded face upon her friend.

“How can you talk so, Lily? Of course the money ought to have been yours, but after all that makes no difference. The important thing⁠—” Gerty paused, and then continued firmly: “The important thing is that you should clear yourself⁠—should tell your friends the whole truth.”

“The whole truth?” Miss Bart laughed. “What is truth? Where a woman is concerned, it’s the story that’s easiest to believe. In this case it’s a great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset’s story than mine, because she has a big house and an opera box, and it’s convenient to be on good terms with her.”

Miss Farish still fixed her with an anxious gaze. “But what is your story, Lily? I don’t believe anyone knows it yet.”

“My story?⁠—I don’t believe I know it myself. You see I never thought of preparing a version in advance as Bertha did⁠—and if I had, I don’t think I should take the trouble to use it now.”

But Gerty continued with her quiet reasonableness: “I don’t want a version prepared in advance⁠—but I want you to tell me exactly what happened from the beginning.”

“From the