The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (story read aloud TXT) 📕

in a

child who should still have been in black for her

parents. It was one of the misguided Medora’s many

peculiarities to flout the unalterable rules that regulated

American mourning, and when she stepped from the

steamer her family were scandalised to see that the

crape veil she wore for her own brother was seven

inches shorter than those of her sisters-in-law, while

little Ellen was in crimson merino and amber beads,

like a gipsy foundling.

 

But New York had so long resigned itself to Medora

that only a few old ladies shook their heads over Ellen’s

gaudy clothes, while her other relations fell under

the charm of her high colour and high spirits. She was

a fearless and familiar little thing, who asked disconcerting

questions, made precocious comments, and possessed

outlandish arts, such as dancing a Spanish shawl

dance and singing Neapolitan love-songs to a guitar.

Under the direction of her aunt (whose real name was

Mrs. Thorley Chivers, but who, having received a Papal

title, had resumed her first husband’s patronymic,

and called herself the Marchioness Manson, because in

Italy she could turn it into Manzoni) the little girl

received an expensive but incoherent education, which

included “drawing from the model,” a thing never

dreamed of before, and playing the piano in quintets

with professional musicians.

 

Of course no good could come of this; and when, a

few years later, poor Chivers finally died in a mad-house, his widow (draped in strange weeds) again pulled

up stakes and departed with Ellen, who had grown into

a tall bony girl with conspicuous eyes. For some time

no more was heard of them; then news came of Ellen’s

marriage to an immensely rich Polish nobleman of

legendary fame, whom she had met at a ball at the

Tuileries, and who was said to have princely establishments

in Paris, Nice and Florence, a yacht at Cowes,

and many square miles of shooting in Transylvania.

She disappeared in a kind of sulphurous apotheosis,

and when a few years later Medora again came back to

New York, subdued, impoverished, mourning a third

husband, and in quest of a still smaller house, people

wondered that her rich niece had not been able to do

something for her. Then came the news that Ellen’s

own marriage had ended in disaster, and that she was

herself returning home to seek rest and oblivion among

her kinsfolk.

 

These things passed through Newland Archer’s mind

a week later as he watched the Countess Olenska enter

the van der Luyden drawing-room on the evening of

the momentous dinner. The occasion was a solemn

one, and he wondered a little nervously how she would

carry it off. She came rather late, one hand still ungloved,

and fastening a bracelet about her wrist; yet she entered

without any appearance of haste or embarrassment

the drawing-room in which New York’s most

chosen company was somewhat awfully assembled.

 

In the middle of the room she paused, looking about

her with a grave mouth and smiling eyes; and in that

instant Newland Archer rejected the general verdict on

her looks. It was true that her early radiance was gone.

The red cheeks had paled; she was thin, worn, a little

older-looking than her age, which must have been nearly

thirty. But there was about her the mysterious authority

of beauty, a sureness in the carriage of the head, the

movement of the eyes, which, without being in the least

theatrical, struck his as highly trained and full of a

conscious power. At the same time she was simpler in

manner than most of the ladies present, and many

people (as he heard afterward from Janey) were disappointed

that her appearance was not more “stylish”

—for stylishness was what New York most valued. It

was, perhaps, Archer reflected, because her early vivacity

had disappeared; because she was so quiet—quiet in

her movements, her voice, and the tones of her low-pitched voice. New York had expected something a

good deal more reasonant in a young woman with such

a history.

 

The dinner was a somewhat formidable business.

Dining with the van der Luydens was at best no light

matter, and dining there with a Duke who was their

cousin was almost a religious solemnity. It pleased

Archer to think that only an old New Yorker could

perceive the shade of difference (to New York) between

being merely a Duke and being the van der Luydens’

Duke. New York took stray noblemen calmly, and

even (except in the Struthers set) with a certain distrustful

hauteur; but when they presented such credentials

as these they were received with an old-fashioned

cordiality that they would have been greatly mistaken in

ascribing solely to their standing in Debrett. It was for

just such distinctions that the young man cherished his

old New York even while he smiled at it.

 

The van der Luydens had done their best to emphasise

the importance of the occasion. The du Lac Sevres

and the Trevenna George II plate were out; so was the

van der Luyden “Lowestoft” (East India Company)

and the Dagonet Crown Derby. Mrs. van der Luyden

looked more than ever like a Cabanel, and Mrs. Archer,

in her grandmother’s seed-pearls and emeralds, reminded

her son of an Isabey miniature. All the ladies had on

their handsomest jewels, but it was characteristic of the

house and the occasion that these were mostly in rather

heavy old-fashioned settings; and old Miss Lanning,

who had been persuaded to come, actually wore her

mother’s cameos and a Spanish blonde shawl.

 

The Countess Olenska was the only young woman at

the dinner; yet, as Archer scanned the smooth plump

elderly faces between their diamond necklaces and

towering ostrich feathers, they struck him as curiously

immature compared with hers. It frightened him to

think what must have gone to the making of her eyes.

 

The Duke of St. Austrey, who sat at his hostess’s

right, was naturally the chief figure of the evening. But

if the Countess Olenska was less conspicuous than had

been hoped, the Duke was almost invisible. Being a

well-bred man he had not (like another recent ducal

visitor) come to the dinner in a shooting-jacket; but his

evening clothes were so shabby and baggy, and he

wore them with such an air of their being homespun,

that (with his stooping way of sitting, and the vast

beard spreading over his shirt-front) he hardly gave the

appearance of being in dinner attire. He was short,

round-shouldered, sunburnt, with a thick nose, small

eyes and a sociable smile; but he seldom spoke, and

when he did it was in such low tones that, despite the

frequent silences of expectation about the table, his

remarks were lost to all but his neighbours.

 

When the men joined the ladies after dinner the

Duke went straight up to the Countess Olenska, and

they sat down in a corner and plunged into animated

talk. Neither seemed aware that the Duke should first

have paid his respects to Mrs. Lovell Mingott and Mrs. Headly

Chivers, and the Countess have conversed with

that amiable hypochondriac, Mr. Urban Dagonet of

Washington Square, who, in order to have the pleasure

of meeting her, had broken through his fixed rule of

not dining out between January and April. The two

chatted together for nearly twenty minutes; then the

Countess rose and, walking alone across the wide

drawing-room, sat down at Newland Archer’s side.

 

It was not the custom in New York drawing-rooms

for a lady to get up and walk away from one gentleman

in order to seek the company of another. Etiquette

required that she should wait, immovable as an idol,

while the men who wished to converse with her succeeded

each other at her side. But the Countess was

apparently unaware of having broken any rule; she sat

at perfect ease in a corner of the sofa beside Archer,

and looked at him with the kindest eyes.

 

“I want you to talk to me about May,” she said.

 

Instead of answering her he asked: “You knew the

Duke before?”

 

“Oh, yes—we used to see him every winter at Nice.

He’s very fond of gambling—he used to come to the

house a great deal.” She said it in the simplest manner,

as if she had said: “He’s fond of wild-flowers”; and

after a moment she added candidly: “I think he’s the

dullest man I ever met.”

 

This pleased her companion so much that he forgot

the slight shock her previous remark had caused him. It

was undeniably exciting to meet a lady who found the

van der Luydens’ Duke dull, and dared to utter the

opinion. He longed to question her, to hear more about

the life of which her careless words had given him so

illuminating a glimpse; but he feared to touch on

distressing memories, and before he could think of

anything to say she had strayed back to her original subject.

 

“May is a darling; I’ve seen no young girl in New

York so handsome and so intelligent. Are you very

much in love with her?”

 

Newland Archer reddened and laughed. “As much as

a man can be.”

 

She continued to consider him thoughtfully, as if not

to miss any shade of meaning in what he said, “Do you

think, then, there is a limit?”

 

“To being in love? If there is, I haven’t found it!”

 

She glowed with sympathy. “Ah—it’s really and truly

a romance?”

 

“The most romantic of romances!”

 

“How delightful! And you found it all out for

yourselves—it was not in the least arranged for you?”

 

Archer looked at her incredulously. “Have you

forgotten,” he asked with a smile, “that in our country we

don’t allow our marriages to be arranged for us?”

 

A dusky blush rose to her cheek, and he instantly

regretted his words.

 

“Yes,” she answered, “I’d forgotten. You must

forgive me if I sometimes make these mistakes. I don’t

always remember that everything here is good that

was—that was bad where I’ve come from.” She looked

down at her Viennese fan of eagle feathers, and he saw

that her lips trembled.

 

“I’m so sorry,” he said impulsively; “but you ARE

among friends here, you know.”

 

“Yes—I know. Wherever I go I have that feeling.

That’s why I came home. I want to forget everything

else, to become a complete American again, like the

Mingotts and Wellands, and you and your delightful

mother, and all the other good people here tonight. Ah,

here’s May arriving, and you will want to hurry away

to her,” she added, but without moving; and her eyes

turned back from the door to rest on the young man’s

face.

 

The drawing-rooms were beginning to fill up with

after-dinner guests, and following Madame Olenska’s

glance Archer saw May Welland entering with her

mother. In her dress of white and silver, with a wreath

of silver blossoms in her hair, the tall girl looked like a

Diana just alight from the chase.

 

“Oh,” said Archer, “I have so many rivals; you see

she’s already surrounded. There’s the Duke being

introduced.”

 

“Then stay with me a little longer,” Madame Olenska

said in a low tone, just touching his knee with her

plumed fan. It was the lightest touch, but it thrilled him

like a caress.

 

“Yes, let me stay,” he answered in the same tone,

hardly knowing what he said; but just then Mr. van

der Luyden came up, followed by old Mr. Urban

Dagonet. The Countess greeted them with her grave

smile, and Archer, feeling his host’s admonitory glance

on him, rose and surrendered his seat.

 

Madame Olenska held out her hand as if to bid him

goodbye.

 

“Tomorrow, then, after five—I shall expect you,”

she said; and then turned back to make room for Mr.

Dagonet.