The House of Mirth
survey had revealed.
The matter of course tone of Mrs. Trenor’s greeting deepened her
irritation. If one did drag one’s self out of bed at such an hour,
and come down fresh and radiant to the monotony of note-writing,
some special recognition of the sacrifice seemed fitting. But Mrs.
Trenor’s tone showed no consciousness of the fact.
“Oh, Lily, that’s nice of you,” she merely sighed across the
chaos of letters, bills and other domestic documents which gave
an incongruously commercial touch to the slender elegance of her
writing-table.
“There are such lots of horrors this morning,” she added, clearing
a space in the centre of the confusion and rising to yield her seat
to Miss Bart.
Mrs. Trenor was a tall fair woman, whose height just saved her
from redundancy. Her rosy blondness had survived some forty years
of futile activity without showing much trace of ill-usage except
in a diminished play of feature. It was difficult to define her
beyond saying that she seemed to exist only as a hostess, not so
much from any exaggerated instinct of hospitality as because she
could not sustain life except in a crowd. The collective nature
of her interests exempted her from the ordinary rivalries of her
sex, and she knew no more personal emotion than that of hatred for
the woman who presumed to give bigger dinners or have more amusing
house-parties than herself. As her social talents, backed by Mr.
Trenor’s bank-account, almost always assured her ultimate triumph
in such competitions, success had developed in her an unscrupulous
good nature toward the rest of her sex, and in Miss Bart’s
utilitarian classification of her friends, Mrs. Trenor ranked as
the woman who was least likely to “go back” on her.
“It was simply inhuman of Pragg to go off now,” Mrs. Trenor
declared, as her friend seated herself at the desk. “She says her
sister is going to have a baby—as if that were anything to having
a house-party! I’m sure I shall get most horribly mixed up and
there will be some awful rows. When I was down at Tuxedo I asked a
lot of people for next week, and I’ve mislaid the list and can’t
remember who is coming. And this week is going to be a horrid
failure too—and Gwen Van Osburgh will go back and tell her mother
how bored people were. I did mean to ask the Wetheralls—that was a
blunder of Gus’s. They disapprove of Carry Fisher, you know. As if
one could help having Carry Fisher! It WAS foolish of her to get
that second divorce—Carry always overdoes things—but she said the
only way to get a penny out of Fisher was to divorce him and make
him pay alimony. And poor Carry has to consider every dollar. It’s
really absurd of Alice Wetherall to make such a fuss about meeting
her, when one thinks of what society is coming to. Some one said
the other day that there was a divorce and a case of appendicitis
in every family one knows. Besides, Carry is the only person who
can keep Gus in a good humour when we have bores in the house. Have
you noticed that ALL the husbands like her? All, I mean, except her
own. It’s rather clever of her to have made a specialty of devoting
herself to dull people—the field is such a large one, and she has
it practically to herself. She finds compensations, no doubt—I know
she borrows money of Gus—but then I’d PAY her to keep him in a good
humour, so I can’t complain, after all.”
Mrs. Trenor paused to enjoy the spectacle of Miss Bart’s efforts to
unravel her tangled correspondence.
“But it is only the Wetheralls and Carry,” she resumed, with a
fresh note of lament. “The truth is, I’m awfully disappointed in
Lady Cressida Raith.”
“Disappointed? Had you known her before?”
“Mercy, no—never saw her till yesterday. Lady Skiddaw sent her
over with letters to the Van Osburghs, and I heard that Maria Van
Osburgh was asking a big party to meet her this week, so I thought
it would be fun to get her away, and Jack Stepney, who knew her
in India, managed it for me. Maria was furious, and actually had
the impudence to make Gwen invite herself here, so that they
shouldn’t be QUITE out of it—if I’d known what Lady Cressida was
like, they could have had her and welcome! But I thought any
friend of the Skiddaws’ was sure to be amusing. You remember what
fun Lady Skiddaw was? There were times when I simply had to send
the girls out of the room. Besides, Lady Cressida is the Duchess
of Beltshire’s sister, and I naturally supposed she was the same
sort; but you never can tell in those English families. They are
so big that there’s room for all kinds, and it turns out that Lady
Cressida is the moral one—married a clergyman and does missionary
work in the East End. Think of my taking such a lot of trouble
about a clergyman’s wife, who wears Indian jewelry and botanizes!
She made Gus take her all through the glass-houses yesterday, and
bothered him to death by asking him the names of the plants. Fancy
treating Gus as if he were the gardener!”
Mrs. Trenor brought this out in a CRESCENDO of indignation.
“Oh, well, perhaps Lady Cressida will reconcile the Wetheralls to
meeting Carry Fisher,” said Miss Bart pacifically.
“I’m sure I hope so! But she is boring all the men horribly, and
if she takes to distributing tracts, as I hear she does, it will
be too depressing. The worst of it is that she would have been so
useful at the right time. You know we have to have the Bishop once
a year, and she would have given just the right tone to things.
I always have horrid luck about the Bishop’s visits,” added Mrs.
Trenor, whose present misery was being fed by a rapidly rising tide
of reminiscence; “last year, when he came, Gus forgot all about his
being here, and brought home the Ned Wintons and the Farleys—five
divorces and six sets of children between them!”
“When is Lady Cressida going?” Lily enquired.
Mrs. Trenor cast up her eyes in despair. “My dear, if one only
knew! I was in such a hurry to get her away from Maria that I
actually forgot to name a date, and Gus says she told some one she
meant to stop here all winter.”
“To stop here? In this house?”
“Don’t be silly—in America. But if no one else asks her—you know
they NEVER go to hotels.”
“Perhaps Gus only said it to frighten you.”
“No—I heard her tell Bertha Dorset that she had six months to put
in while her husband was taking the cure in the Engadine. You
should have seen Bertha look vacant! But it’s no joke, you know—if
she stays here all the autumn she’ll spoil everything, and Maria
Van Osburgh will simply exult.”
At this affecting vision Mrs. Trenor’s voice trembled with
self-pity.
“Oh, Judy—as if any one were ever bored at Bellomont!” Miss Bart
tactfully protested. “You know perfectly well that, if Mrs. Van
Osburgh were to get all the right people and leave you with all the
wrong ones, you’d manage to make things go off, and she wouldn’t.”
Such an assurance would usually have restored Mrs. Trenor’s
complacency; but on this occasion it did not chase the cloud from
her brow.
“It isn’t only Lady Cressida,” she lamented. “Everything has gone
wrong this week. I can see that Bertha Dorset is furious with me.”
“Furious with you? Why?”
“Because I told her that Lawrence Selden was coming; but he
wouldn’t, after all, and she’s quite unreasonable enough to think
it’s my fault.”
Miss Bart put down her pen and sat absently gazing at the note she
had begun.
“I thought that was all over,” she said.
“So it is, on his side. And of course Bertha has been idle since.
But I fancy she’s out of a job just at present—and some one gave me
a hint that I had better ask Lawrence. Well, I DID ask him—but I
couldn’t make him come; and now I suppose she’ll take it out of me
by being perfectly nasty to every one else.”
“Oh, she may take it out of HIM by being perfectly charming—to some
one else.”
Mrs. Trenor shook her head dolefully. “She knows he wouldn’t mind.
And who else is there? Alice Wetherall won’t let Lucius out of her
sight. Ned Silverton can’t take his eyes off Carry Fisher—poor boy!
Gus is bored by Bertha, Jack Stepney knows her too well—and—well,
to be sure, there’s Percy Gryce!”
She sat up smiling at the thought.
Miss Bart’s countenance did not reflect the smile.
“Oh, she and Mr. Gryce would not be likely to hit it off.”
“You mean that she’d shock him and he’d bore her? Well, that’s not
such a bad beginning, you know. But I hope she won’t take it into
her head to be nice to him, for I asked him here on purpose for
you.”
Lily laughed. “MERCI DU COMPLIMENT! I should certainly have no show
against Bertha.”
“Do you think I am uncomplimentary? I’m not really, you know. Every
one knows you’re a thousand times handsomer and cleverer than
Bertha; but then you’re not nasty. And for always getting what she
wants in the long run, commend me to a nasty woman.”
Miss Bart stared in affected reproval. “I thought you were so fond
of Bertha.”
“Oh, I am—it’s much safer to be fond of dangerous people. But she
IS dangerous—and if I ever saw her up to mischief it’s now. I can
tell by poor George’s manner. That man is a perfect barometer—he
always knows when Bertha is going to——”
“To fall?” Miss Bart suggested.
“Don’t be shocking! You know he believes in her still. And of
course I don’t say there’s any real harm in Bertha. Only she
delights in making people miserable, and especially poor George.”
“Well, he seems cut out for the part—I don’t wonder she likes more
cheerful companionship.”
“Oh, George is not as dismal as you think. If Bertha did worry him
he would be quite different. Or if she’d leave him alone, and let
him arrange his life as he pleases. But she doesn’t dare lose her
hold of him on account of the money, and so when HE isn’t jealous
she pretends to be.”
Miss Bart went on writing in silence, and her hostess sat following
her train of thought with frowning intensity.
“Do you know,” she exclaimed after a long pause, “I believe I’ll
call up Lawrence on the telephone and tell him he simply MUST come?”
“Oh, don’t,” said Lily, with a quick suffusion of colour. The blush
surprised her almost as much as it did her hostess, who, though
not commonly observant of facial changes, sat staring at her with
puzzled eyes.
“Good gracious, Lily, how handsome you are! Why? Do you dislike him
so much?”
“Not at all; I like him. But if you are actuated by the benevolent
intention of protecting me from Bertha—I don’t think I need your
protection.”
Mrs. Trenor sat up with an exclamation. “Lily!——PERCY? Do you mean
to say you’ve actually done it?”
Miss Bart smiled. “I only mean to say that Mr. Gryce and I are
getting to be very good friends.”
“H’m—I see.” Mrs. Trenor fixed a rapt eye upon her. “You know they
say he has eight hundred thousand a year—and spends nothing, except
on some rubbishy old books. And his mother has heart-disease and
will leave him a lot more. OH, LILY, DO GO SLOWLY,” her friend
adjured her.
Miss Bart continued to smile without annoyance. “I shouldn’t, for
instance,” she remarked, “be in any haste to tell him that he had a
lot of rubbishy old books.”
“No, of course not; I know you’re wonderful about getting up
people’s subjects. But he’s horribly shy, and easily shocked,
and—and——”
“Why don’t you say it, Judy? I have the reputation of being on the
hunt for a rich husband?”
“Oh, I don’t mean that; he wouldn’t believe it of you—at first,”
said Mrs. Trenor, with candid shrewdness. “But you know things are
rather lively here at times—I must give Jack and Gus a hint—and
if he thought you were what his mother would call fast—oh, well,
you know what I mean. Don’t wear your scarlet CREPE-DE-CHINE for
dinner, and don’t smoke if you can help it, Lily dear!”
Lily pushed aside her finished work with a dry smile. “You’re very