The Age of Innocence
literary clubs and exotic restaurants, though a first shake made it
seem more of a kaleidoscope, turned out, in the end, to be a smaller
box, with a more monotonous pattern, than the assembled atoms of Fifth
Avenue.
The next morning Archer scoured the town in vain for more yellow
roses. In consequence of this search he arrived late at the office,
perceived that his doing so made no difference whatever to any one,
and was filled with sudden exasperation at the elaborate futility
of his life. Why should he not be, at that moment, on the sands of
St. Augustine with May Welland? No one was deceived by his pretense
of professional activity. In old-fashioned legal firms like that of
which Mr. Letterblair was the head, and which were mainly engaged in
the management of large estates and "conservative" investments, there
were always two or three young men, fairly well-off, and without
professional ambition, who, for a certain number of hours of each day,
sat at their desks accomplishing trivial tasks, or simply reading
the newspapers. Though it was supposed to be proper for them to have
an occupation, the crude fact of money-making was still regarded as
derogatory, and the law, being a profession, was accounted a more
gentlemanly pursuit than business. But none of these young men had much
hope of really advancing in his profession, or any earnest desire to
do so; and over many of them the green mould of the perfunctory was
already perceptibly spreading.
It made Archer shiver to think that it might be spreading over him too.
He had, to be sure, other tastes and interests; he spent his vacations
in European travel, cultivated the "clever people" May spoke of, and
generally tried to "keep up," as he had somewhat wistfully put it to
Madame Olenska. But once he was married, what would become of this
narrow margin of life in which his real experiences were lived? He
had seen enough of other young men who had dreamed his dream, though
perhaps less ardently, and who had gradually sunk into the placid and
luxurious routine of their elders.
From the office he sent a note by messenger to Madame Olenska, asking
if he might call that afternoon, and begging her to let him find a
reply at his club; but at the club he found nothing, nor did he receive
any letter the following day. This unexpected silence mortified him
beyond reason, and though the next morning he saw a glorious cluster
of yellow roses behind a florist's window-pane, he left it there. It
was only on the third morning that he received a line by post from
the Countess Olenska. To his surprise it was dated from Skuytercliff,
whither the van der Luydens had promptly retreated after putting the
Duke on board his steamer.
"I ran away," the writer began abruptly (without the usual
preliminaries), "the day after I saw you at the play, and these kind
friends have taken me in. I wanted to be quiet, and think things over.
You were right in telling me how kind they were; I feel myself so safe
here. I wish that you were with us." She ended with a conventional
"Yours sincerely," and without any allusion to the date of her return.
The tone of the note surprised the young man. What was Madame Olenska
running away from, and why did she feel the need to be safe? His first
thought was of some dark menace from abroad; then he reflected that he
did not know her epistolary style, and that it might run to picturesque
exaggeration. Women always exaggerated; and moreover she was not
wholly at her ease in English, which she often spoke as if she were
translating from the French. "Je me suis évadée--" put in that way,
the opening sentence immediately suggested that she might merely have
wanted to escape from a boring round of engagements; which was very
likely true, for he judged her to be capricious, and easily wearied of
the pleasure of the moment.
It amused him to think of the van der Luydens' having carried her off
to Skuytercliff on a second visit, and this time for an indefinite
period. The doors of Skuytercliff were rarely and grudgingly opened
to visitors, and a chilly week-end was the most ever offered to the
few thus privileged. But Archer had seen, on his last visit to Paris,
the delicious play of Labiche, "Le Voyage de M. Perrichon," and he
remembered M. Perrichon's dogged and undiscouraged attachment to the
young man whom he had pulled out of the glacier. The van der Luydens
had rescued Madame Olenska from a doom almost as icy; and though there
were many other reasons for being attracted to her, Archer knew that
beneath them all lay the gentle and obstinate determination to go on
rescuing her.
He felt a distinct disappointment on learning that she was away; and
almost immediately remembered that, only the day before, he had refused
an invitation to spend the following Sunday with the Reggie Chiverses
at their house on the Hudson, a few miles below Skuytercliff.
He had had his fill long ago of the noisy friendly parties at Highbank,
with coasting, ice-boating, sleighing, long tramps in the snow, and a
general flavour of mild flirting and milder practical jokes. He had
just received a box of new books from his London book-seller, and had
preferred the prospect of a quiet Sunday at home with his spoils. But
he now went into the club writing-room, wrote a hurried telegram, and
told the servant to send it immediately. He knew that Mrs. Reggie
didn't object to her visitors' suddenly changing their minds, and that
there was always a room to spare in her elastic house.
XV.
Newland Archer arrived at the Chiverses' on Friday evening, and on
Saturday went conscientiously through all the rites appertaining to a
week-end at Highbank.
In the morning he had a spin in the ice-boat with his hostess and a few
of the hardier guests; in the afternoon he "went over the farm" with
Reggie, and listened, in the elaborately appointed stables, to long
and impressive disquisitions on the horse; after tea he talked in a
corner of the firelit hall with a young lady who had professed herself
broken-hearted when his engagement was announced, but was now eager to
tell him of her own matrimonial hopes; and finally, about midnight,
he assisted in putting a gold-fish in one visitor's bed, dressed up a
burglar in the bath-room of a nervous aunt, and saw in the small hours
by joining in a pillow-fight that ranged from the nurseries to the
basement. But on Sunday after luncheon he borrowed a cutter, and drove
over to Skuytercliff.
People had always been told that the house at Skuytercliff was an
Italian villa. Those who had never been to Italy believed it; so did
some who had. The house had been built by Mr. van der Luyden in his
youth, on his return from the "grand tour," and in anticipation of his
approaching marriage with Miss Louisa Dagonet. It was a large square
wooden structure, with tongued and grooved walls painted pale green and
white, a Corinthian portico, and fluted pilasters between the windows.
From the high ground on which it stood a series of terraces bordered
by balustrades and urns descended in the steel-engraving style to a
small irregular lake with an asphalt edge overhung by rare weeping
conifers. To the right and left, the famous weedless lawns studded with
"specimen" trees (each of a different variety) rolled away to long
ranges of grass crested with elaborate cast-iron ornaments; and below,
in a hollow, lay the four-roomed stone house which the first Patroon
had built on the land granted him in 1612.
Against the uniform sheet of snow and the greyish winter sky the
Italian villa loomed up rather grimly; even in summer it kept its
distance, and the boldest coleus bed had never ventured nearer than
thirty feet from its awful front. Now, as Archer rang the bell, the
long tinkle seemed to echo through a mausoleum; and the surprise of the
butler who at length responded to the call was as great as though he
had been summoned from his final sleep.
Happily Archer was of the family, and therefore, irregular though his
arrival was, entitled to be informed that the Countess Olenska was out,
having driven to afternoon service with Mrs. van der Luyden exactly
three quarters of an hour earlier.
"Mr. van der Luyden," the butler continued, "is in, sir; but my
impression is that he is either finishing his nap or else reading
yesterday's Evening Post. I heard him say, sir, on his return from
church this morning, that he intended to look through the Evening Post
after luncheon; if you like, sir, I might go to the library door and
listen--"
But Archer, thanking him, said that he would go and meet the ladies;
and the butler, obviously relieved, closed the door on him majestically.
A groom took the cutter to the stables, and Archer struck through the
park to the high-road. The village of Skuytercliff was only a mile and
a half away, but he knew that Mrs. van der Luyden never walked, and
that he must keep to the road to meet the carriage. Presently, however,
coming down a foot-path that crossed the highway, he caught sight of a
slight figure in a red cloak, with a big dog running ahead. He hurried
forward, and Madame Olenska stopped short with a smile of welcome.
"Ah, you've come!" she said, and drew her hand from her muff.
The red cloak made her look gay and vivid, like the Ellen Mingott of
old days; and he laughed as he took her hand, and answered: "I came to
see what you were running away from."
Her face clouded over, but she answered: "Ah, well--you will see,
presently."
The answer puzzled him. "Why--do you mean that you've been overtaken?"
She shrugged her shoulders, with a little movement like Nastasia's, and
rejoined in a lighter tone: "Shall we walk on? I'm so cold after the
sermon. And what does it matter, now you're here to protect me?"
The blood rose to his temples and he caught a fold of her cloak.
"Ellen--what is it? You must tell me."
"Oh, presently--let's run a race first: my feet are freezing to the
ground," she cried; and gathering up the cloak she fled away across
the snow, the dog leaping about her with challenging barks. For a
moment Archer stood watching, his gaze delighted by the flash of the
red meteor against the snow; then he started after her, and they met,
panting and laughing, at a wicket that led into the park.
She looked up at him and smiled. "I knew you'd come!"
"That shows you wanted me to," he returned, with a disproportionate joy
in their nonsense. The white glitter of the trees filled the air with
its own mysterious brightness, and as they walked on over the snow the
ground seemed to sing under their feet.
"Where did you come from?" Madame Olenska asked.
He told her, and added: "It was because I got your note."
After a pause she said, with a just perceptible chill in her voice:
"May asked you to take care of me."
"I didn't need any asking."
"You mean--I'm so evidently helpless and defenceless? What a poor thing
you must all think me! But women here seem not--seem never to feel the
need: any more than the blessed in heaven."
He lowered his voice to ask: "What sort of a need?"
"Ah, don't ask me! I don't speak your language," she retorted
petulantly.
The answer smote him like a blow, and he stood still in the path,
looking down at her.
"What did I come for, if I don't speak yours?"
"Oh, my friend--!" She laid her hand lightly on his arm, and he pleaded
earnestly: "Ellen--why won't you tell me what's happened?"
She shrugged again. "Does anything ever happen in heaven?"
He was silent, and they walked on a few yards without exchanging a
word. Finally she said: "I will tell you--but where, where, where? One
can't be alone for a minute in that great seminary of a house, with all
the doors wide open, and always a servant bringing tea, or a log for