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

his consuming desire to be simple and

striking.

 

“Oh, it’s a poor little place. My relations despise it.

But at any rate it’s less gloomy than the van der

Luydens’.”

 

The words gave him an electric shock, for few were

the rebellious spirits who would have dared to call the

stately home of the van der Luydens gloomy. Those

privileged to enter it shivered there, and spoke of it as

“handsome.” But suddenly he was glad that she had

given voice to the general shiver.

 

“It’s delicious—what you’ve done here,” he repeated.

 

“I like the little house,” she admitted; “but I suppose

what I like is the blessedness of its being here, in my

own country and my own town; and then, of being

alone in it.” She spoke so low that he hardly heard the

last phrase; but in his awkwardness he took it up.

 

“You like so much to be alone?”

 

“Yes; as long as my friends keep me from feeling

lonely.” She sat down near the fire, said: “Nastasia will

bring the tea presently,” and signed to him to return to

his armchair, adding: “I see you’ve already chosen your

corner.”

 

Leaning back, she folded her arms behind her head,

and looked at the fire under drooping lids.

 

“This is the hour I like best—don’t you?”

 

A proper sense of his dignity caused him to answer:

“I was afraid you’d forgotten the hour. Beaufort must

have been very engrossing.”

 

She looked amused. “Why—have you waited long?

Mr. Beaufort took me to see a number of houses—

since it seems I’m not to be allowed to stay in this

one.” She appeared to dismiss both Beaufort and himself

from her mind, and went on: “I’ve never been in a

city where there seems to be such a feeling against

living in des quartiers excentriques. What does it

matter where one lives? I’m told this street is respectable.”

 

“It’s not fashionable.”

 

“Fashionable! Do you all think so much of that?

Why not make one’s own fashions? But I suppose I’ve

lived too independently; at any rate, I want to do what

you all do—I want to feel cared for and safe.”

 

He was touched, as he had been the evening before

when she spoke of her need of guidance.

 

“That’s what your friends want you to feel. New

York’s an awfully safe place,” he added with a flash of

sarcasm.

 

“Yes, isn’t it? One feels that,” she cried, missing the

mockery. “Being here is like—like—being taken on a

holiday when one has been a good little girl and done

all one’s lessons.”

 

The analogy was well meant, but did not altogether

please him. He did not mind being flippant about New

York, but disliked to hear any one else take the same

tone. He wondered if she did not begin to see what a

powerful engine it was, and how nearly it had crushed

her. The Lovell Mingotts’ dinner, patched up in extremis

out of all sorts of social odds and ends, ought to have

taught her the narrowness of her escape; but either she

had been all along unaware of having skirted disaster,

or else she had lost sight of it in the triumph of the van

der Luyden evening. Archer inclined to the former theory;

he fancied that her New York was still completely

undifferentiated, and the conjecture nettled him.

 

“Last night,” he said, “New York laid itself out for

you. The van der Luydens do nothing by halves.”

 

“No: how kind they are! It was such a nice party.

Every one seems to have such an esteem for them.”

 

The terms were hardly adequate; she might have

spoken in that way of a tea-party at the dear old Miss

Lannings’.

 

“The van der Luydens,” said Archer, feeling himself

pompous as he spoke, “are the most powerful influence

in New York society. Unfortunately—owing to her

health—they receive very seldom.”

 

She unclasped her hands from behind her head, and

looked at him meditatively.

 

“Isn’t that perhaps the reason?”

 

“The reason—?”

 

“For their great influence; that they make themselves

so rare.”

 

He coloured a little, stared at her—and suddenly felt

the penetration of the remark. At a stroke she had

pricked the van der Luydens and they collapsed. He

laughed, and sacrificed them.

 

Nastasia brought the tea, with handleless Japanese

cups and little covered dishes, placing the tray on a low

table.

 

“But you’ll explain these things to me—you’ll tell me

all I ought to know,” Madame Olenska continued,

leaning forward to hand him his cup.

 

“It’s you who are telling me; opening my eyes to

things I’d looked at so long that I’d ceased to see

them.”

 

She detached a small gold cigarette-case from one of

her bracelets, held it out to him, and took a cigarette

herself. On the chimney were long spills for lighting

them.

 

“Ah, then we can both help each other. But I want

help so much more. You must tell me just what to do.”

 

It was on the tip of his tongue to reply: “Don’t be

seen driving about the streets with Beaufort—” but he

was being too deeply drawn into the atmosphere of the

room, which was her atmosphere, and to give advice of

that sort would have been like telling some one who

was bargaining for attar-of-roses in Samarkand that one

should always be provided with arctics for a New York

winter. New York seemed much farther off than

Samarkand, and if they were indeed to help each other

she was rendering what might prove the first of their

mutual services by making him look at his native city

objectively. Viewed thus, as through the wrong end of

a telescope, it looked disconcertingly small and distant;

but then from Samarkand it would.

 

A flame darted from the logs and she bent over the

fire, stretching her thin hands so close to it that a faint

halo shone about the oval nails. The light touched to

russet the rings of dark hair escaping from her braids,

and made her pale face paler.

 

“There are plenty of people to tell you what to do,”

Archer rejoined, obscurely envious of them.

 

“Oh—all my aunts? And my dear old Granny?” She

considered the idea impartially. “They’re all a little

vexed with me for setting up for myself—poor Granny

especially. She wanted to keep me with her; but I had

to be free—” He was impressed by this light way of

speaking of the formidable Catherine, and moved by

the thought of what must have given Madame Olenska

this thirst for even the loneliest kind of freedom. But

the idea of Beaufort gnawed him.

 

“I think I understand how you feel,” he said. “Still,

your family can advise you; explain differences; show

you the way.”

 

She lifted her thin black eyebrows. “Is New York

such a labyrinth? I thought it so straight up and down—

like Fifth Avenue. And with all the cross streets

numbered!” She seemed to guess his faint disapproval of

this, and added, with the rare smile that enchanted her

whole face: “If you knew how I like it for just THAT—

the straight-up-and-downness, and the big honest labels on everything!”

 

He saw his chance. “Everything may be labelled—

but everybody is not.”

 

“Perhaps. I may simplify too much—but you’ll warn

me if I do.” She turned from the fire to look at him.

“There are only two people here who make me feel as

if they understood what I mean and could explain

things to me: you and Mr. Beaufort.”

 

Archer winced at the joining of the names, and then,

with a quick readjustment, understood, sympathised

and pitied. So close to the powers of evil she must have

lived that she still breathed more freely in their air. But

since she felt that he understood her also, his business

would be to make her see Beaufort as he really was,

with all he represented—and abhor it.

 

He answered gently: “I understand. But just at first

don’t let go of your old friends’ hands: I mean the

older women, your Granny Mingott, Mrs. Welland,

Mrs. van der Luyden. They like and admire you—they

want to help you.”

 

She shook her head and sighed. “Oh, I know—I

know! But on condition that they don’t hear anything

unpleasant. Aunt Welland put it in those very words

when I tried… . Does no one want to know the truth

here, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among

all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!”

She lifted her hands to her face, and he saw her thin

shoulders shaken by a sob.

 

“Madame Olenska!—Oh, don’t, Ellen,” he cried, starting

up and bending over her. He drew down one of her

hands, clasping and chafing it like a child’s while he

murmured reassuring words; but in a moment she freed

herself, and looked up at him with wet lashes.

 

“Does no one cry here, either? I suppose there’s no

need to, in heaven,” she said, straightening her loosened

braids with a laugh, and bending over the tea-kettle. It was burnt into his consciousness that he had

called her “Ellen”—called her so twice; and that she

had not noticed it. Far down the inverted telescope he

saw the faint white figure of May Welland—in New

York.

 

Suddenly Nastasia put her head in to say something

in her rich Italian.

 

Madame Olenska, again with a hand at her hair,

uttered an exclamation of assent—a flashing “Gia—

gia”—and the Duke of St. Austrey entered, piloting

a tremendous blackwigged and red-plumed lady in overflowing furs.

 

“My dear Countess, I’ve brought an old friend of

mine to see you—Mrs. Struthers. She wasn’t asked to

the party last night, and she wants to know you.”

 

The Duke beamed on the group, and Madame Olenska

advanced with a murmur of welcome toward the queer

couple. She seemed to have no idea how oddly matched

they were, nor what a liberty the Duke had taken in

bringing his companion—and to do him justice, as

Archer perceived, the Duke seemed as unaware of it

himself.

 

“Of course I want to know you, my dear,” cried

Mrs. Struthers in a round rolling voice that matched

her bold feathers and her brazen wig. “I want to know

everybody who’s young and interesting and charming.

And the Duke tells me you like music—didn’t you,

Duke? You’re a pianist yourself, I believe? Well, do

you want to hear Sarasate play tomorrow evening at

my house? You know I’ve something going on every

Sunday evening—it’s the day when New York doesn’t

know what to do with itself, and so I say to it: `Come

and be amused.’ And the Duke thought you’d be tempted

by Sarasate. You’ll find a number of your friends.”

 

Madame Olenska’s face grew brilliant with pleasure.

“How kind! How good of the Duke to think of me!”

She pushed a chair up to the tea-table and Mrs. Struthers

sank into it delectably. “Of course I shall be too

happy to come.”

 

“That’s all right, my dear. And bring your young

gentleman with you.” Mrs. Struthers extended a hail-fellow hand to Archer. “I can’t put a name to you—but

I’m sure I’ve met you—I’ve met everybody, here, or in

Paris or London. Aren’t you in diplomacy? All the

diplomatists come to me. You like music too? Duke,

you must be sure to bring him.”

 

The Duke said “Rather” from the depths of his

beard, and Archer withdrew with a stiffly circular bow

that made him feel as full of spine as a self-conscious

school-boy among careless and unnoticing elders.

 

He was not sorry for the denouement of his visit:

he only wished