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

they’re so upset

that they’re going back to Skuytercliff tomorrow. I

think, Newland, you’d better come down. You don’t

seem to understand how mother feels.”

 

In the drawing-room Newland found his mother. She

raised a troubled brow from her needlework to ask:

“Has Janey told you?”

 

“Yes.” He tried to keep his tone as measured as her

own. “But I can’t take it very seriously.”

 

“Not the fact of having offended cousin Louisa and

cousin Henry?”

 

“The fact that they can be offended by such a trifle

as Countess Olenska’s going to the house of a woman

they consider common.”

 

“Consider—!”

 

“Well, who is; but who has good music, and amuses

people on Sunday evenings, when the whole of New

York is dying of inanition.”

 

“Good music? All I know is, there was a woman

who got up on a table and sang the things they sing at

the places you go to in Paris. There was smoking and

champagne.”

 

“Well—that kind of thing happens in other places,

and the world still goes on.”

 

“I don’t suppose, dear, you’re really defending the

French Sunday?”

 

“I’ve heard you often enough, mother, grumble at

the English Sunday when we’ve been in London.”

 

“New York is neither Paris nor London.”

 

“Oh, no, it’s not!” her son groaned.

 

“You mean, I suppose, that society here is not as

brilliant? You’re right, I daresay; but we belong here,

and people should respect our ways when they come

among us. Ellen Olenska especially: she came back to

get away from the kind of life people lead in brilliant

societies.”

 

Newland made no answer, and after a moment his

mother ventured: “I was going to put on my bonnet

and ask you to take me to see cousin Louisa for a

moment before dinner.” He frowned, and she continued:

“I thought you might explain to her what you’ve

just said: that society abroad is different … that people

are not as particular, and that Madame Olenska

may not have realised how we feel about such things. It

would be, you know, dear,” she added with an innocent

adroitness, “in Madame Olenska’s interest if you

did.”

 

“Dearest mother, I really don’t see how we’re

concerned in the matter. The Duke took Madame Olenska

to Mrs. Struthers’s—in fact he brought Mrs. Struthers

to call on her. I was there when they came. If the van

der Luydens want to quarrel with anybody, the real

culprit is under their own roof.”

 

“Quarrel? Newland, did you ever know of cousin

Henry’s quarrelling? Besides, the Duke’s his guest; and

a stranger too. Strangers don’t discriminate: how should

they? Countess Olenska is a New Yorker, and should

have respected the feelings of New York.”

 

“Well, then, if they must have a victim, you have my

leave to throw Madame Olenska to them,” cried her

son, exasperated. “I don’t see myself—or you either—

offering ourselves up to expiate her crimes.”

 

“Oh, of course you see only the Mingott side,” his

mother answered, in the sensitive tone that was her

nearest approach to anger.

 

The sad butler drew back the drawing-room

portieres and announced: “Mr. Henry van der Luyden.”

 

Mrs. Archer dropped her needle and pushed her

chair back with an agitated hand.

 

“Another lamp,” she cried to the retreating servant,

while Janey bent over to straighten her mother’s cap.

 

Mr. van der Luyden’s figure loomed on the threshold,

and Newland Archer went forward to greet his

cousin.

 

“We were just talking about you, sir,” he said.

 

Mr. van der Luyden seemed overwhelmed by the

announcement. He drew off his glove to shake hands

with the ladies, and smoothed his tall hat shyly, while

Janey pushed an armchair forward, and Archer

continued: “And the Countess Olenska.”

 

Mrs. Archer paled.

 

“Ah—a charming woman. I have just been to see

her,” said Mr. van der Luyden, complacency restored

to his brow. He sank into the chair, laid his hat and

gloves on the floor beside him in the old-fashioned

way, and went on: “She has a real gift for arranging

flowers. I had sent her a few carnations from Skuytercliff,

and I was astonished. Instead of massing them in big

bunches as our head-gardener does, she had scattered

them about loosely, here and there … I can’t say how.

The Duke had told me: he said: `Go and see how

cleverly she’s arranged her drawing-room.’ And she

has. I should really like to take Louisa to see her, if the

neighbourhood were not so—unpleasant.”

 

A dead silence greeted this unusual flow of words

from Mr. van der Luyden. Mrs. Archer drew her

embroidery out of the basket into which she had

nervously tumbled it, and Newland, leaning against the

chimney-place and twisting a humming-bird-feather

screen in his hand, saw Janey’s gaping countenance lit

up by the coming of the second lamp.

 

“The fact is,” Mr. van der Luyden continued, stroking

his long grey leg with a bloodless hand weighed

down by the Patroon’s great signet-ring, “the fact is, I

dropped in to thank her for the very pretty note she

wrote me about my flowers; and also—but this is

between ourselves, of course—to give her a friendly warning

about allowing the Duke to carry her off to parties

with him. I don’t know if you’ve heard—”

 

Mrs. Archer produced an indulgent smile. “Has the

Duke been carrying her off to parties?”

 

“You know what these English grandees are. They’re

all alike. Louisa and I are very fond of our cousin—but

it’s hopeless to expect people who are accustomed to

the European courts to trouble themselves about our

little republican distinctions. The Duke goes where he’s

amused.” Mr. van der Luyden paused, but no one

spoke. “Yes—it seems he took her with him last night

to Mrs. Lemuel Struthers’s. Sillerton Jackson has just

been to us with the foolish story, and Louisa was

rather troubled. So I thought the shortest way was to

go straight to Countess Olenska and explain—by the

merest hint, you know—how we feel in New York

about certain things. I felt I might, without indelicacy,

because the evening she dined with us she rather

suggested … rather let me see that she would be grateful

for guidance. And she WAS.”

 

Mr. van der Luyden looked about the room with

what would have been self-satisfaction on features less

purged of the vulgar passions. On his face it became a

mild benevolence which Mrs. Archer’s countenance

dutifully reflected.

 

“How kind you both are, dear Henry—always!

Newland will particularly appreciate what you have

done because of dear May and his new relations.”

 

She shot an admonitory glance at her son, who said:

“Immensely, sir. But I was sure you’d like Madame

Olenska.”

 

Mr. van der Luyden looked at him with extreme

gentleness. “I never ask to my house, my dear Newland,”

he said, “any one whom I do not like. And so I have

just told Sillerton Jackson.” With a glance at the clock

he rose and added: “But Louisa will be waiting. We are

dining early, to take the Duke to the Opera.”

 

After the portieres had solemnly closed behind their

visitor a silence fell upon the Archer family.

 

“Gracious—how romantic!” at last broke explosively

from Janey. No one knew exactly what inspired her

elliptic comments, and her relations had long since

given up trying to interpret them.

 

Mrs. Archer shook her head with a sigh. “Provided it

all turns out for the best,” she said, in the tone of one

who knows how surely it will not. “Newland, you

must stay and see Sillerton Jackson when he comes this

evening: I really shan’t know what to say to him.”

 

“Poor mother! But he won’t come—” her son laughed,

stooping to kiss away her frown.

 

XI.

 

Some two weeks later, Newland Archer, sitting in

abstracted idleness in his private compartment of

the office of Letterblair, Lamson and Low, attorneys at

law, was summoned by the head of the firm.

 

Old Mr. Letterblair, the accredited legal adviser of

three generations of New York gentility, throned behind

his mahogany desk in evident perplexity. As he

stroked his closeclipped white whiskers and ran his

hand through the rumpled grey locks above his jutting

brows, his disrespectful junior partner thought how

much he looked like the Family Physician annoyed

with a patient whose symptoms refuse to be classified.

 

“My dear sir—” he always addressed Archer as

“sir”—“I have sent for you to go into a little matter; a

matter which, for the moment, I prefer not to mention

either to Mr. Skipworth or Mr. Redwood.” The gentlemen

he spoke of were the other senior partners of the

firm; for, as was always the case with legal associations

of old standing in New York, all the partners named

on the office letter-head were long since dead; and Mr.

Letterblair, for example, was, professionally speaking,

his own grandson.

 

He leaned back in his chair with a furrowed brow.

“For family reasons—” he continued.

 

Archer looked up.

 

“The Mingott family,” said Mr. Letterblair with an

explanatory smile and bow. “Mrs. Manson Mingott

sent for me yesterday. Her granddaughter the Countess

Olenska wishes to sue her husband for divorce.

Certain papers have been placed in my hands.” He

paused and drummed on his desk. “In view of your

prospective alliance with the family I should like to

consult you—to consider the case with you—before

taking any farther steps.”

 

Archer felt the blood in his temples. He had seen the

Countess Olenska only once since his visit to her, and

then at the Opera, in the Mingott box. During this

interval she had become a less vivid and importunate

image, receding from his foreground as May Welland

resumed her rightful place in it. He had not heard her

divorce spoken of since Janey’s first random allusion to

it, and had dismissed the tale as unfounded gossip.

Theoretically, the idea of divorce was almost as

distasteful to him as to his mother; and he was annoyed

that Mr. Letterblair (no doubt prompted by old Catherine

Mingott) should be so evidently planning to draw

him into the affair. After all, there were plenty of

Mingott men for such jobs, and as yet he was not even

a Mingott by marriage.

 

He waited for the senior partner to continue. Mr.

Letterblair unlocked a drawer and drew out a packet.

“If you will run your eye over these papers—”

 

Archer frowned. “I beg your pardon, sir; but just

because of the prospective relationship, I should prefer

your consulting Mr. Skipworth or Mr. Redwood.”

 

Mr. Letterblair looked surprised and slightly offended.

It was unusual for a junior to reject such an opening.

 

He bowed. “I respect your scruple, sir; but in this

case I believe true delicacy requires you to do as I ask.

Indeed, the suggestion is not mine but Mrs. Manson

Mingott’s and her son’s. I have seen Lovell Mingott;

and also Mr. Welland. They all named you.”

 

Archer felt his temper rising. He had been somewhat

languidly drifting with events for the last fortnight, and

letting May’s fair looks and radiant nature obliterate

the rather importunate pressure of the Mingott claims.

But this behest of old Mrs. Mingott’s roused him to a

sense of what the clan thought they had the right to

exact from a prospective son-in-law; and he chafed at

the role.

 

“Her uncles ought to deal with this,” he said.

 

“They have. The matter has been gone into by the

family. They are opposed to the Countess’s idea; but

she is firm, and insists on a legal opinion.”

 

The young man was silent: he had not opened the

packet in his hand.

 

“Does she want to marry again?”