The Age of Innocence
"Of course you know already--about May and me," he said, answering her
look with a shy laugh. "She scolded me for not giving you the news
last night at the Opera: I had her orders to tell you that we were
engaged--but I couldn't, in that crowd."
The smile passed from Countess Olenska's eyes to her lips: she looked
younger, more like the bold brown Ellen Mingott of his boyhood. "Of
course I know; yes. And I'm so glad. But one doesn't tell such things
first in a crowd." The ladies were on the threshold and she held out
her hand.
"Good-bye; come and see me some day," she said, still looking at Archer.
In the carriage, on the way down Fifth Avenue, they talked pointedly of
Mrs. Mingott, of her age, her spirit, and all her wonderful attributes.
No one alluded to Ellen Olenska; but Archer knew that Mrs. Welland was
thinking: "It's a mistake for Ellen to be seen, the very day after
her arrival, parading up Fifth Avenue at the crowded hour with Julius
Beaufort--" and the young man himself mentally added: "And she ought to
know that a man who's just engaged doesn't spend his time calling on
married women. But I daresay in the set she's lived in they do--they
never do anything else." And, in spite of the cosmopolitan views on
which he prided himself, he thanked heaven that he was a New Yorker,
and about to ally himself with one of his own kind.
V.
The next evening old Mr. Sillerton Jackson came to dine with the
Archers.
Mrs. Archer was a shy woman and shrank from society; but she liked to
be well-informed as to its doings. Her old friend Mr. Sillerton Jackson
applied to the investigation of his friends' affairs the patience of a
collector and the science of a naturalist; and his sister, Miss Sophy
Jackson, who lived with him, and was entertained by all the people who
could not secure her much-sought-after brother, brought home bits of
minor gossip that filled out usefully the gaps in his picture.
Therefore, whenever anything happened that Mrs. Archer wanted to
know about, she asked Mr. Jackson to dine; and as she honoured few
people with her invitations, and as she and her daughter Janey were an
excellent audience, Mr. Jackson usually came himself instead of sending
his sister. If he could have dictated all the conditions, he would have
chosen the evenings when Newland was out; not because the young man was
uncongenial to him (the two got on capitally at their club) but because
the old anecdotist sometimes felt, on Newland's part, a tendency to
weigh his evidence that the ladies of the family never showed.
Mr. Jackson, if perfection had been attainable on earth, would also
have asked that Mrs. Archer's food should be a little better. But then
New York, as far back as the mind of man could travel, had been divided
into the two great fundamental groups of the Mingotts and Mansons and
all their clan, who cared about eating and clothes and money, and
the Archer-Newland-van-der-Luyden tribe, who were devoted to travel,
horticulture and the best fiction, and looked down on the grosser forms
of pleasure.
You couldn't have everything, after all. If you dined with the Lovell
Mingotts you got canvas-back and terrapin and vintage wines; at Adeline
Archer's you could talk about Alpine scenery and "The Marble Faun";
and luckily the Archer Madeira had gone round the Cape. Therefore when
a friendly summons came from Mrs. Archer, Mr. Jackson, who was a true
eclectic, would usually say to his sister: "I've been a little gouty
since my last dinner at the Lovell Mingotts'--it will do me good to
diet at Adeline's."
Mrs. Archer, who had long been a widow, lived with her son and daughter
in West Twenty-eighth Street. An upper floor was dedicated to Newland,
and the two women squeezed themselves into narrower quarters below.
In an unclouded harmony of tastes and interests they cultivated ferns
in Wardian cases, made _macramé_ lace and wool embroidery on linen,
collected American revolutionary glazed ware, subscribed to "Good
Words," and read Ouida's novels for the sake of the Italian atmosphere.
(They preferred those about peasant life, because of the descriptions
of scenery and the pleasanter sentiments, though in general they liked
novels about people in society, whose motives and habits were more
comprehensible, spoke severely of Dickens, who "had never drawn a
gentleman," and considered Thackeray less at home in the great world
than Bulwer--who, however, was beginning to be thought old-fashioned.)
Mrs. and Miss Archer were both great lovers of scenery. It was what
they principally sought and admired on their occasional travels
abroad; considering architecture and painting as subjects for men,
and chiefly for learned persons who read Ruskin. Mrs. Archer had been
born a Newland, and mother and daughter, who were as like as sisters,
were both, as people said, "true Newlands"; tall, pale, and slightly
round-shouldered, with long noses, sweet smiles and a kind of drooping
distinction like that in certain faded Reynolds portraits. Their
physical resemblance would have been complete if an elderly embonpoint
had not stretched Mrs. Archer's black brocade, while Miss Archer's
brown and purple poplins hung, as the years went on, more and more
slackly on her virgin frame.
Mentally, the likeness between them, as Newland was aware, was less
complete than their identical mannerisms often made it appear. The long
habit of living together in mutually dependent intimacy had given them
the same vocabulary, and the same habit of beginning their phrases
"Mother thinks" or "Janey thinks," according as one or the other wished
to advance an opinion of her own; but in reality, while Mrs. Archer's
serene unimaginativeness rested easily in the accepted and familiar,
Janey was subject to starts and aberrations of fancy welling up from
springs of suppressed romance.
Mother and daughter adored each other and revered their son and
brother; and Archer loved them with a tenderness made compunctious and
uncritical by the sense of their exaggerated admiration, and by his
secret satisfaction in it. After all, he thought it a good thing for a
man to have his authority respected in his own house, even if his sense
of humour sometimes made him question the force of his mandate.
On this occasion the young man was very sure that Mr. Jackson would
rather have had him dine out; but he had his own reasons for not doing
so.
Of course old Jackson wanted to talk about Ellen Olenska, and of course
Mrs. Archer and Janey wanted to hear what he had to tell. All three
would be slightly embarrassed by Newland's presence, now that his
prospective relation to the Mingott clan had been made known; and the
young man waited with an amused curiosity to see how they would turn
the difficulty.
They began, obliquely, by talking about Mrs. Lemuel Struthers.
"It's a pity the Beauforts asked her," Mrs. Archer said gently. "But
then Regina always does what he tells her; and _Beaufort_--"
"Certain _nuances_ escape Beaufort," said Mr. Jackson, cautiously
inspecting the broiled shad, and wondering for the thousandth time why
Mrs. Archer's cook always burnt the roe to a cinder. (Newland, who
had long shared his wonder, could always detect it in the older man's
expression of melancholy disapproval.)
"Oh, necessarily; Beaufort is a vulgar man," said Mrs. Archer. "My
grandfather Newland always used to say to my mother: 'Whatever you do,
don't let that fellow Beaufort be introduced to the girls.' But at
least he's had the advantage of associating with gentlemen; in England
too, they say. It's all very mysterious--" She glanced at Janey and
paused. She and Janey knew every fold of the Beaufort mystery, but in
public Mrs. Archer continued to assume that the subject was not one for
the unmarried.
"But this Mrs. Struthers," Mrs. Archer continued; "what did you say
_she_ was, Sillerton?"
"Out of a mine: or rather out of the saloon at the head of the pit.
Then with Living Wax-Works, touring New England. After the police broke
_that_ up, they say she lived--" Mr. Jackson in his turn glanced at
Janey, whose eyes began to bulge from under her prominent lids. There
were still hiatuses for her in Mrs. Struthers's past.
"Then," Mr. Jackson continued (and Archer saw he was wondering why no
one had told the butler never to slice cucumbers with a steel knife),
"then Lemuel Struthers came along. They say his advertiser used the
girl's head for the shoe-polish posters; her hair's intensely black,
you know--the Egyptian style. Anyhow, he--eventually--married her."
There were volumes of innuendo in the way the "eventually" was spaced,
and each syllable given its due stress.
"Oh, well--at the pass we've come to nowadays, it doesn't matter," said
Mrs. Archer indifferently. The ladies were not really interested in
Mrs. Struthers just then; the subject of Ellen Olenska was too fresh
and too absorbing to them. Indeed, Mrs. Struthers's name had been
introduced by Mrs. Archer only that she might presently be able to say:
"And Newland's new cousin--Countess Olenska? Was _she_ at the ball too?"
There was a faint touch of sarcasm in the reference to her son, and
Archer knew it and had expected it. Even Mrs. Archer, who was seldom
unduly pleased with human events, had been altogether glad of her
son's engagement. ("Especially after that silly business with Mrs.
Rushworth," as she had remarked to Janey, alluding to what had once
seemed to Newland a tragedy of which his soul would always bear the
scar.)
There was no better match in New York than May Welland, look at the
question from whatever point you chose. Of course such a marriage was
only what Newland was entitled to; but young men are so foolish and
incalculable--and some women so ensnaring and unscrupulous--that it was
nothing short of a miracle to see one's only son safe past the Siren
Isle and in the haven of a blameless domesticity.
All this Mrs. Archer felt, and her son knew she felt; but he knew
also that she had been perturbed by the premature announcement of his
engagement, or rather by its cause; and it was for that reason--because
on the whole he was a tender and indulgent master--that he had stayed
at home that evening. "It's not that I don't approve of the Mingotts'
_esprit de corps_; but why Newland's engagement should be mixed up with
that Olenska woman's comings and goings I don't see," Mrs. Archer
grumbled to Janey, the only witness of her slight lapses from perfect
sweetness.
She had behaved beautifully--and in beautiful behaviour she was
unsurpassed--during the call on Mrs. Welland; but Newland knew (and his
betrothed doubtless guessed) that all through the visit she and Janey
were nervously on the watch for Madame Olenska's possible intrusion;
and when they left the house together she had permitted herself to say
to her son: "I'm thankful that Augusta Welland received us alone."
These indications of inward disturbance moved Archer the more that he
too felt that the Mingotts had gone a little too far. But, as it was
against all the rules of their code that the mother and son should ever
allude to what was uppermost in their thoughts, he simply replied: "Oh,
well, there's always a phase of family parties to be gone through when
one gets engaged, and the sooner it's over the better." At which his
mother merely pursed her lips under the lace veil that hung down from
her grey velvet bonnet trimmed with frosted grapes.
Her revenge, he felt--her lawful revenge--would be to "draw" Mr.
Jackson that evening on the Countess Olenska; and, having publicly done
his duty as a future member of the Mingott clan, the young man had no
objection to hearing the lady discussed in private--except that the
subject was already beginning to bore him.