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

turning grey,

was still parted in flat overlapping points on her forehead,

and the straight nose that divided her pale blue

eyes was only a little more pinched about the nostrils

than when the portrait had been painted. She always,

indeed, struck Newland Archer as having been rather

gruesomely preserved in the airless atmosphere of a

perfectly irreproachable existence, as bodies caught in

glaciers keep for years a rosy life-in-death.

 

Like all his family, he esteemed and admired Mrs.

van der Luyden; but he found her gentle bending sweetness

less approachable than the grimness of some of his

mother’s old aunts, fierce spinsters who said “No” on

principle before they knew what they were going to be

asked.

 

Mrs. van der Luyden’s attitude said neither yes nor

no, but always appeared to incline to clemency till her

thin lips, wavering into the shadow of a smile, made

the almost invariable reply: “I shall first have to talk

this over with my husband.”

 

She and Mr. van der Luyden were so exactly alike

that Archer often wondered how, after forty years of

the closest conjugality, two such merged identities ever

separated themselves enough for anything as controversial

as a talking-over. But as neither had ever reached a

decision without prefacing it by this mysterious

conclave, Mrs. Archer and her son, having set forth their

case, waited resignedly for the familiar phrase.

 

Mrs. van der Luyden, however, who had seldom

surprised any one, now surprised them by reaching her

long hand toward the bell-rope.

 

“I think,” she said, “I should like Henry to hear

what you have told me.”

 

A footman appeared, to whom she gravely added:

“If Mr. van der Luyden has finished reading the

newspaper, please ask him to be kind enough to come.”

 

She said “reading the newspaper” in the tone in

which a Minister’s wife might have said: “Presiding at

a Cabinet meeting”—not from any arrogance of mind,

but because the habit of a lifetime, and the attitude of

her friends and relations, had led her to consider Mr.

van der Luyden’s least gesture as having an almost

sacerdotal importance.

 

Her promptness of action showed that she considered

the case as pressing as Mrs. Archer; but, lest she

should be thought to have committed herself in advance,

she added, with the sweetest look: “Henry always

enjoys seeing you, dear Adeline; and he will wish

to congratulate Newland.”

 

The double doors had solemnly reopened and between

them appeared Mr. Henry van der Luyden, tall,

spare and frock-coated, with faded fair hair, a straight

nose like his wife’s and the same look of frozen gentleness

in eyes that were merely pale grey instead of pale

blue.

 

Mr. van der Luyden greeted Mrs. Archer with cousinly

affability, proffered to Newland low-voiced

congratulations couched in the same language as his wife’s,

and seated himself in one of the brocade armchairs

with the simplicity of a reigning sovereign.

 

“I had just finished reading the Times,” he said,

laying his long finger-tips together. “In town my mornings

are so much occupied that I find it more convenient

to read the newspapers after luncheon.”

 

“Ah, there’s a great deal to be said for that plan—

indeed I think my uncle Egmont used to say he found it

less agitating not to read the morning papers till after

dinner,” said Mrs. Archer responsively.

 

“Yes: my good father abhorred hurry. But now we

live in a constant rush,” said Mr. van der Luyden in

measured tones, looking with pleasant deliberation about

the large shrouded room which to Archer was so complete

an image of its owners.

 

“But I hope you HAD finished your reading, Henry?”

his wife interposed.

 

“Quite—quite,” he reassured her.

 

“Then I should like Adeline to tell you—”

 

“Oh, it’s really Newland’s story,” said his mother

smiling; and proceeded to rehearse once more the monstrous

tale of the affront inflicted on Mrs. Lovell Mingott.

 

“Of course,” she ended, “Augusta Welland and Mary

Mingott both felt that, especially in view of Newland’s

engagement, you and Henry OUGHT TO KNOW.”

 

“Ah—” said Mr. van der Luyden, drawing a deep

breath.

 

There was a silence during which the tick of the

monumental ormolu clock on the white marble mantelpiece

grew as loud as the boom of a minute-gun. Archer

contemplated with awe the two slender faded figures,

seated side by side in a kind of viceregal rigidity,

mouthpieces of some remote ancestral authority which fate

compelled them to wield, when they would so much

rather have lived in simplicity and seclusion, digging

invisible weeds out of the perfect lawns of Skuytercliff,

and playing Patience together in the evenings.

 

Mr. van der Luyden was the first to speak.

 

“You really think this is due to some—some

intentional interference of Lawrence Lefferts’s?” he enquired,

turning to Archer.

 

“I’m certain of it, sir. Larry has been going it rather

harder than usual lately—if cousin Louisa won’t mind

my mentioning it—having rather a stiff affair with the

postmaster’s wife in their village, or some one of that

sort; and whenever poor Gertrude Lefferts begins to

suspect anything, and he’s afraid of trouble, he gets up

a fuss of this kind, to show how awfully moral he is,

and talks at the top of his voice about the impertinence

of inviting his wife to meet people he doesn’t wish her

to know. He’s simply using Madame Olenska as a

lightning-rod; I’ve seen him try the same thing often

before.”

 

“The LEFFERTSES!—” said Mrs. van der Luyden.

 

“The LEFFERTSES!—” echoed Mrs. Archer. “What would

uncle Egmont have said of Lawrence Lefferts’s

pronouncing on anybody’s social position? It shows what

Society has come to.”

 

“We’ll hope it has not quite come to that,” said Mr.

van der Luyden firmly.

 

“Ah, if only you and Louisa went out more!” sighed

Mrs. Archer.

 

But instantly she became aware of her mistake. The

van der Luydens were morbidly sensitive to any criticism

of their secluded existence. They were the arbiters

of fashion, the Court of last Appeal, and they knew it,

and bowed to their fate. But being shy and retiring

persons, with no natural inclination for their part, they

lived as much as possible in the sylvan solitude of

Skuytercliff, and when they came to town, declined all

invitations on the plea of Mrs. van der Luyden’s health.

 

Newland Archer came to his mother’s rescue.

“Everybody in New York knows what you and cousin

Louisa represent. That’s why Mrs. Mingott felt she

ought not to allow this slight on Countess Olenska to

pass without consulting you.”

 

Mrs. van der Luyden glanced at her husband, who

glanced back at her.

 

“It is the principle that I dislike,” said Mr. van der

Luyden. “As long as a member of a well-known family

is backed up by that family it should be considered—

final.”

 

“It seems so to me,” said his wife, as if she were

producing a new thought.

 

“I had no idea,” Mr. van der Luyden continued,

“that things had come to such a pass.” He paused, and

looked at his wife again. “It occurs to me, my dear,

that the Countess Olenska is already a sort of relation—

through Medora Manson’s first husband. At any rate,

she will be when Newland marries.” He turned toward

the young man. “Have you read this morning’s Times,

Newland?”

 

“Why, yes, sir,” said Archer, who usually tossed off

half a dozen papers with his morning coffee.

 

Husband and wife looked at each other again. Their

pale eyes clung together in prolonged and serious

consultation; then a faint smile fluttered over Mrs. van der

Luyden’s face. She had evidently guessed and approved.

 

Mr. van der Luyden turned to Mrs. Archer. “If Louisa’s

health allowed her to dine out—I wish you would

say to Mrs. Lovell Mingott—she and I would have

been happy to—er—fill the places of the Lawrence

Leffertses at her dinner.” He paused to let the irony of

this sink in. “As you know, this is impossible.” Mrs.

Archer sounded a sympathetic assent. “But Newland

tells me he has read this morning’s Times; therefore he

has probably seen that Louisa’s relative, the Duke of

St. Austrey, arrives next week on the Russia. He is

coming to enter his new sloop, the Guinevere, in next

summer’s International Cup Race; and also to have a

little canvasback shooting at Trevenna.” Mr. van der

Luyden paused again, and continued with increasing

benevolence: “Before taking him down to Maryland

we are inviting a few friends to meet him here—only a

little dinner—with a reception afterward. I am sure

Louisa will be as glad as I am if Countess Olenska will

let us include her among our guests.” He got up, bent

his long body with a stiff friendliness toward his cousin,

and added: “I think I have Louisa’s authority for saying

that she will herself leave the invitation to dine

when she drives out presently: with our cards—of course

with our cards.”

 

Mrs. Archer, who knew this to be a hint that the

seventeen-hand chestnuts which were never kept waiting

were at the door, rose with a hurried murmur of

thanks. Mrs. van der Luyden beamed on her with the

smile of Esther interceding with Ahasuerus; but her

husband raised a protesting hand.

 

“There is nothing to thank me for, dear Adeline;

nothing whatever. This kind of thing must not happen

in New York; it shall not, as long as I can help it,” he

pronounced with sovereign gentleness as he steered his

cousins to the door.

 

Two hours later, every one knew that the great

C-spring barouche in which Mrs. van der Luyden

took the air at all seasons had been seen at old

Mrs. Mingott’s door, where a large square envelope

was handed in; and that evening at the Opera Mr.

Sillerton Jackson was able to state that the envelope

contained a card inviting the Countess Olenska

to the dinner which the van der Luydens were giving

the following week for their cousin, the Duke

of St. Austrey.

 

Some of the younger men in the club box exchanged

a smile at this announcement, and glanced sideways at

Lawrence Lefferts, who sat carelessly in the front of the

box, pulling his long fair moustache, and who remarked

with authority, as the soprano paused: “No one but

Patti ought to attempt the Sonnambula.”

 

VIII.

 

It was generally agreed in New York that the Countess

Olenska had “lost her looks.”

 

She had appeared there first, in Newland Archer’s

boyhood, as a brilliantly pretty little girl of nine or ten,

of whom people said that she “ought to be painted.”

Her parents had been continental wanderers, and after

a roaming babyhood she had lost them both, and been

taken in charge by her aunt, Medora Manson, also a

wanderer, who was herself returning to New York to

“settle down.”

 

Poor Medora, repeatedly widowed, was always coming

home to settle down (each time in a less expensive

house), and bringing with her a new husband or an

adopted child; but after a few months she invariably

parted from her husband or quarrelled with her ward,

and, having got rid of her house at a loss, set out again

on her wanderings. As her mother had been a Rushworth,

and her last unhappy marriage had linked her

to one of the crazy Chiverses, New York looked indulgently

on her eccentricities; but when she returned with

her little orphaned niece, whose parents had been popular

in spite of their regrettable taste for travel, people thought

it a pity that the pretty child should be in such hands.

 

Every one was disposed to be kind to little Ellen

Mingott, though her dusky red cheeks and tight curls

gave her an air of gaiety that seemed unsuitable