The Age of Innocence
"Darling!" Archer said--and suddenly the same black abyss yawned before
him and he felt himself sinking into it, deeper and deeper, while his
voice rambled on smoothly and cheerfully: "Yes, of course I thought
I'd lost the ring; no wedding would be complete if the poor devil of
a bridegroom didn't go through that. But you _did_ keep me waiting, you
know! I had time to think of every horror that might possibly happen."
She surprised him by turning, in full Fifth Avenue, and flinging her
arms about his neck. "But none ever can__ happen now, can it, Newland, as
long as we two are together?"
Every detail of the day had been so carefully thought out that the
young couple, after the wedding-breakfast, had ample time to put on
their travelling-clothes, descend the wide Mingott stairs between
laughing bridesmaids and weeping parents, and get into the brougham
under the traditional shower of rice and satin slippers; and there was
still half an hour left in which to drive to the station, buy the last
weeklies at the bookstall with the air of seasoned travellers, and
settle themselves in the reserved compartment in which May's maid had
already placed her dove-coloured travelling cloak and glaringly new
dressing-bag from London.
The old du Lac aunts at Rhinebeck had put their house at the disposal
of the bridal couple, with a readiness inspired by the prospect of
spending a week in New York with Mrs. Archer; and Archer, glad to
escape the usual "bridal suite" in a Philadelphia or Baltimore hotel,
had accepted with an equal alacrity.
May was enchanted at the idea of going to the country, and childishly
amused at the vain efforts of the eight bridesmaids to discover where
their mysterious retreat was situated. It was thought "very English"
to have a country-house lent to one, and the fact gave a last touch of
distinction to what was generally conceded to be the most brilliant
wedding of the year; but where the house was no one was permitted to
know, except the parents of bride and groom, who, when taxed with the
knowledge, pursed their lips and said mysteriously: "Ah, they didn't
tell us--" which was manifestly true, since there was no need to.
Once they were settled in their compartment, and the train, shaking
off the endless wooden suburbs, had pushed out into the pale landscape
of spring, talk became easier than Archer had expected. May was still,
in look and tone, the simple girl of yesterday, eager to compare notes
with him as to the incidents of the wedding, and discussing them as
impartially as a bridesmaid talking it all over with an usher. At first
Archer had fancied that this detachment was the disguise of an inward
tremor; but her clear eyes revealed only the most tranquil unawareness.
She was alone for the first time with her husband; but her husband was
only the charming comrade of yesterday. There was no one whom she liked
as much, no one whom she trusted as completely, and the culminating
"lark" of the whole delightful adventure of engagement and marriage was
to be off with him alone on a journey, like a grownup person, like a
"married woman," in fact.
It was wonderful that--as he had learned in the Mission garden at St.
Augustine--such depths of feeling could coexist with such absence of
imagination. But he remembered how, even then, she had surprised him by
dropping back to inexpressive girlishness as soon as her conscience had
been eased of its burden; and he saw that she would probably go through
life dealing to the best of her ability with each experience as it
came, but never anticipating any by so much as a stolen glance.
Perhaps that faculty of unawareness was what gave her eyes their
transparency, and her face the look of representing a type rather than
a person; as if she might have been chosen to pose for a Civic Virtue
or a Greek goddess. The blood that ran so close to her fair skin might
have been a preserving fluid rather than a ravaging element; yet her
look of indestructible youthfulness made her seem neither hard nor
dull, but only primitive and pure. In the thick of this meditation
Archer suddenly felt himself looking at her with the startled gaze of a
stranger, and plunged into a reminiscence of the wedding-breakfast and
of Granny Mingott's immense and triumphant pervasion of it.
May settled down to frank enjoyment of the subject. "I was surprised,
though--weren't you?--that aunt Medora came after all. Ellen wrote that
they were neither of them well enough to take the journey; I do wish it
had been she who had recovered! Did you see the exquisite old lace she
sent me?"
He had known that the moment must come sooner or later, but he had
somewhat imagined that by force of willing he might hold it at bay.
"Yes--I--no: yes, it was beautiful," he said, looking at her blindly,
and wondering if, whenever he heard those two syllables, all his
carefully built-up world would tumble about him like a house of cards.
"Aren't you tired? It will be good to have some tea when we arrive--I'm
sure the aunts have got everything beautifully ready," he rattled
on, taking her hand in his; and her mind rushed away instantly to
the magnificent tea and coffee service of Baltimore silver which the
Beauforts had sent, and which "went" so perfectly with uncle Lovell
Mingott's trays and side-dishes.
In the spring twilight the train stopped at the Rhinebeck station, and
they walked along the platform to the waiting carriage.
"Ah, how awfully kind of the van der Luydens--they've sent their man
over from Skuytercliff to meet us," Archer exclaimed, as a sedate
person out of livery approached them and relieved the maid of her bags.
"I'm extremely sorry, sir," said this emissary, "that a little
accident has occurred at the Miss du Lacs': a leak in the water-tank.
It happened yesterday, and Mr. van der Luyden, who heard of it this
morning, sent a housemaid up by the early train to get the Patroon's
house ready. It will be quite comfortable, I think you'll find, sir;
and the Miss du Lacs have sent their cook over, so that it will be
exactly the same as if you'd been at Rhinebeck."
Archer stared at the speaker so blankly that he repeated in still more
apologetic accents: "It'll be exactly the same, sir, I do assure you--"
and May's eager voice broke out, covering the embarrassed silence:
"The same as Rhinebeck? The Patroon's house? But it will be a hundred
thousand times better--won't it, Newland? It's too dear and kind of Mr.
van der Luyden to have thought of it."
And as they drove off, with the maid beside the coachman, and their
shining bridal bags on the seat before them, she went on excitedly:
"Only fancy, I've never been inside it--have you? The van der Luydens
show it to so few people. But they opened it for Ellen, it seems, and
she told me what a darling little place it was: she says it's the only
house she's seen in America that she could imagine being perfectly
happy in."
"Well--that's what we're going to be, isn't it?" cried her husband
gaily; and she answered with her boyish smile: "Ah, it's just our luck
beginning--the wonderful luck we're always going to have together!"
XX.
"Of course we must dine with Mrs. Carfry, dearest," Archer said; and
his wife looked at him with an anxious frown across the monumental
Britannia ware of their lodging house breakfast-table.
In all the rainy desert of autumnal London there were only two people
whom the Newland Archers knew; and these two they had sedulously
avoided, in conformity with the old New York tradition that it was not
"dignified" to force one's self on the notice of one's acquaintances in
foreign countries.
Mrs. Archer and Janey, in the course of their visits to Europe, had so
unflinchingly lived up to this principle, and met the friendly advances
of their fellow-travellers with an air of such impenetrable reserve,
that they had almost achieved the record of never having exchanged
a word with a "foreigner" other than those employed in hotels and
railway-stations. Their own compatriots--save those previously known or
properly accredited--they treated with an even more pronounced disdain;
so that, unless they ran across a Chivers, a Dagonet or a Mingott,
their months abroad were spent in an unbroken _tête-à-tête_. But the
utmost precautions are sometimes unavailing; and one night at Botzen
one of the two English ladies in the room across the passage (whose
names, dress and social situation were already intimately known to
Janey) had knocked on the door and asked if Mrs. Archer had a bottle of
liniment. The other lady--the intruder's sister, Mrs. Carfry--had been
seized with a sudden attack of bronchitis; and Mrs. Archer, who never
travelled without a complete family pharmacy, was fortunately able to
produce the required remedy.
Mrs. Carfry was very ill, and as she and her sister Miss Harle were
travelling alone they were profoundly grateful to the Archer ladies,
who supplied them with ingenious comforts and whose efficient maid
helped to nurse the invalid back to health.
When the Archers left Botzen they had no idea of ever seeing Mrs.
Carfry and Miss Harle again. Nothing, to Mrs. Archer's mind, would have
been more "undignified" than to force one's self on the notice of a
"foreigner" to whom one had happened to render an accidental service.
But Mrs. Carfry and her sister, to whom this point of view was unknown,
and who would have found it utterly incomprehensible, felt themselves
linked by an eternal gratitude to the "delightful Americans" who had
been so kind at Botzen. With touching fidelity they seized every chance
of meeting Mrs. Archer and Janey in the course of their continental
travels, and displayed a supernatural acuteness in finding out when
they were to pass through London on their way to or from the States.
The intimacy became indissoluble, and Mrs. Archer and Janey, whenever
they alighted at Brown's Hotel, found themselves awaited by two
affectionate friends who, like themselves, cultivated ferns in Wardian
cases, made macramé lace, read the memoirs of the Baroness Bunsen and
had views about the occupants of the leading London pulpits. As Mrs.
Archer said, it made "another thing of London" to know Mrs. Carfry and
Miss Harle; and by the time that Newland became engaged the tie between
the families was so firmly established that it was thought "only right"
to send a wedding invitation to the two English ladies, who sent, in
return, a pretty bouquet of pressed Alpine flowers under glass. And on
the dock, when Newland and his wife sailed for England, Mrs. Archer's
last word had been: "You must take May to see Mrs. Carfry."
Newland and his wife had had no idea of obeying this injunction; but
Mrs. Carfry, with her usual acuteness, had run them down and sent them
an invitation to dine; and it was over this invitation that May Archer
was wrinkling her brows across the tea and muffins.
"It's all very well for you, Newland; you _know_ them. But I shall feel
so shy among a lot of people I've never met. And what shall I wear?"
Newland leaned back in his chair and smiled at her. She looked
handsomer and more Diana-like than ever. The moist English air seemed
to have deepened the bloom of her cheeks and softened the slight
hardness of her virginal features; or else it was simply the inner glow
of happiness, shining through like a light under ice.
"Wear, dearest? I thought a trunkful of things had come from Paris last
week."
"Yes, of course. I meant to say that I shan't know _which_ to wear." She
pouted a little. "I've never dined out in London; and I don't want to
be ridiculous."
He tried to enter into her perplexity. "But don't Englishwomen dress
just like everybody else in the evening?"
"Newland! How can you ask such funny questions? When they go to the