Edith Wharton - Novel 21

by The Buccaneers (v2. 1)

  “Is she black his anguished mother Selina Brightlingsea.”

  For some time the governess pored in vain over this cryptic communication; but at last light came to her, and she leaned her head back against her chair and laughed. She understood just what must have happened. Though there were two splendid globes, terrestrial and celestial, at opposite ends of the Allfriars library, no one in the house had ever been known to consult them; and Lady Brightlingsea’s geographical notions, even measured by the family standard, were notoriously hazy. She could not imagine why any one should ever want to leave England, and her idea of the continent was one enormous fog from which two places called Paris and Rome indistinctly emerged; while the whole western hemisphere was little more clear to her than to the forerunners of Columbus. But Miss Testvalley remembered that on one wall of the Vandyke saloon, where the family sometimes sat after dinner, there hung a great tapestry, brilliant in colour, rich and elaborate in design, in the foreground of which a shapely young Negress flanked by ruddy savages and attended by parakeets and monkeys was seen offering a tribute of tropical fruits to a lolling divinity. The housekeeper, Miss Testvalley also remembered, in showing this tapestry to visitors, on the day when Allfriars was open to the public, always designated it as “The Spanish Main and the Americas—” and what could be more natural than that poor bewildered Lady Brightlingsea should connect her son’s halting explanations with this instructive scene?

  Miss Testvalley pondered for a long time over her reply; then, for once forgetting to make a “governess’s answer”, she cabled back to Lady Brightlingsea: “No, but comely.”

  

  Book II.

  VIII.

  On a June afternoon of the year 1875 one of the biggest carriages in London drew up before one of the smallest houses in Mayfair—the very smallest in that exclusive quarter, its occupant, Miss Jacqueline March, always modestly averred.

  The tiny dwelling, a mere two-windowed wedge, with a bulging balcony under a striped awning, had been newly painted a pale buff, and freshly festooned with hanging pink geraniums and intensely blue lobelias. The carriage, on the contrary, a vast old-fashioned barouche of faded yellow, with impressive armorial bearings, and coachman and footman to scale, showed no signs of recent renovation; and the lady who descended from it was, like her conveyance, large and rather shabby though undeniably impressive.

  A freshly starched parlour-maid let her in with a curtsey of recognition. “Miss March is in the drawing-room, my lady.” She led the visitor up the narrow stairs and announced from the threshold: “Please, Miss, Lady Brightlingsea.”

  Two ladies sat in the drawing-room in earnest talk. One of the two was vaguely perceived by Lady Brightlingsea to be small and brown, with burning black eyes which did not seem to go with her stiff purple poplin and old-fashioned beaded dolman.

  The other lady was also very small, but extremely fair and elegant, with natural blond curls touched with gray, and a delicate complexion. She hurried hospitably forward.

  “Dearest Lady Brightlingsea! What a delightful surprise!—You’re not going to leave us, Laura?”

  It was clear that the dark lady addressed as Laura was meant to do exactly what her hostess suggested she should not. She pressed the latter’s hand in a resolute brown kid glove, bestowed a bow and a slanting curtsey on the Marchioness of Brightlingsea, and was out of the room with the ease and promptness of a person long practised in self-effacement.

  Lady Brightlingsea sent a vague glance after the retreating figure. “Now who was that, my dear? I seem to know…”

  Miss March, who had a touch of firmness under her deprecating exterior, replied without hesitation: “An old friend, dear Lady Brightlingsea, Miss Testvalley, who used to be governess to the Duchess’s younger girls at Tintagel.”

  Lady Brightlingsea’s long pale face grew still vaguer. “At Tintagel? Oh, but of course. It was I who recommended her to Blanche Tintagel… Testvalley? The name is so odd. She was with us, you know; she was with Honoria and Ulrica before Madame Championnet finished them.”

  “Yes. I remember you used to think well of her. I believe it was at Allfriars I first met her.”

  Lady Brightlingsea looked plaintively at Miss March. Her face always grew plaintive when she was asked to squeeze one more fact—even one already familiar—into her weary and over-crowded memory. “Oh, yes… oh, yes!”

  Miss March, glancing brightly at her guest, as though to re-animate the latter’s failing energy, added: “I wish she could have stayed. You might have been interested in her experiences in America.”

  “In America?” Lady Brightlingsea’s vagueness was streaked by a gleam of interest. “She’s been in America?”

  “In the States. In fact, I think she was governess to that new beauty who’s being talked about a good deal just now. A Miss St George—Virginia St George. You may have heard of her?”

  Lady Brightlingsea sighed at this new call upon her powers of concentration. “I hear of nothing but Americans. My son’s house is always full of them.”

  “Oh, yes; and I believe Miss St George is a particular friend of Lady Richard’s.”

  “Very likely. Is she from the same part of the States—from Brazil?”

  Miss March, who was herself a native of the States, had in her youth been astonished at enquiries of this kind, and slightly resentful of them; but long residence in England, and a desire to appear at home in her adopted country, had accustomed her to such geography as Lady Brightlingsea’s. “Slightly farther north, I think,” she said.

  “Ah? But they make nothing of distances in those countries, do they? Is this new young woman rich?” asked Lady Brightlingsea abruptly.

  Miss March reflected, and then decided to say: “According to Miss Testvalley the St Georges appear to live in great luxury.”

  Lady Brightlingsea sank back wearily. “That means nothing. My daughter-in-law’s people do that too. But the man has never paid her settlements. Her step-father, I mean—I never can remember any of their names. I don’t see how they can tell each other apart, all herded together, without any titles or distinctions. It’s unfortunate that Richard did nothing about settlements; and now, barely two years after their marriage, the man says he can’t go on paying his step-daughter’s allowance. And I’m afraid the young people owe a great deal of money.”

  Miss March heaved a deep sigh of sympathy. “A bad coffee-year, I suppose.”

  “That’s what he says. But how can one tell? Do you suppose those other people would lend them the money?”

  Miss March counted it as one of the many privileges of living in London that two or three times a year her friend Lady Brightlingsea came to see her. In Miss March’s youth a great tragedy had befallen her—a sorrow which had darkened all her days. It had befallen her in London, and all her American friends—and they were many—had urged her to return at once to her home in New York. A proper sense of dignity, they insisted, should make it impossible for her to remain in a society where she had been so cruelly, so publicly offended. Miss March listened, hesitated—and finally remained in London. “They simply don’t know,” she explained to an American friend who also lived there, “what they’re asking me to give up.” And the friend sighed her assent.

  “The first years will be difficult,” Miss March had continued courageously, “but I think in the end I shan’t be sorry.” And she was right. At first she had been only a poor little pretty American who had been jilted by an eminent nobleman; yes, and after the wedding-dress was ordered—the countermanding of that wedding-dress had long been one of her most agonizing memories. But since the unhappy date over thirty years had slipped by; and gradually, as they passed, and as people found out how friendly and obliging she was, and what a sweet little house she lived in, she had become the centre of a circle of warm friends, and the oracle of transatlantic pilgrims in quest of a social opening. These pilgrims had learned that Jacky March’s narrow front door led straight into the London world, and a number
had already slipped in through it. Miss March had a kind heart, and could never resist doing a friend a good turn; and if her services were sometimes rewarded by a cheque, or a new drawing-room carpet, or a chinchilla tippet and muff, she saw no harm in this way of keeping herself and her house in good shape. “After all, if my friends are kind enough to come here, I want my house and myself, tiny as we both are, to be presentable.”

  All this passed through Miss March’s active mind while she sat listening to Lady Brightlingsea. Even should friendship so incline them, she doubted if the St George family would be able to come to the aid of the young Dick Marables, but there might be combinations, arrangements—who could tell? Laura Testvalley might enlighten her. It was never Miss March’s policy to oppose a direct refusal to a friend.

  “Dear Lady Brightlingsea, I’m so dreadfully distressed at what you tell me.”

  “Yes. It’s certainly very unlucky. And most trying for my husband. And I’m afraid poor Dick’s not behaving as well as he might. After all, as he says, he’s been deceived.”

  Miss March knew that this applied to Lady Richard’s money and not to her morals, and she sighed again. “Mr. St George was a business associate of Mr. Closson’s at one time, I believe. Those people generally back each other up. But of course they all have their ups and downs. At any rate I’ll see, I’ll make enquiries…”

  “Their ways are so odd, you know,” Lady Brightlingsea pursued. It never seemed to occur to her that Miss March was one of “them”, and Miss March emitted a murmur of sympathy, for these new people seemed as alien to her as to her visitor. “So very odd. And they speak so fast—I can’t understand them. But I suppose one would get used to that. What I cannot see is their beauty—the young girls, I mean. They toss about so—they’re never still. And they don’t know how to carry themselves.” She paused to add in a lower tone: “I believe my daughter-in-law dances to some odd instrument—quite like a ballet dancer. I hope her skirts are not as short. And sings in Spanish. Is Spanish their native language still?”

  Miss March, despairing of making it clear to Lady Brightlingsea that Brazil was not one of the original Thirteen States, evaded this by saying: “You must remember they’ve not had the social training which only a Court can give. But some of them seem to learn very quickly.”

  “Oh, I hope so,” Lady Brightlingsea exclaimed, as if clutching at a floating spar. Slowly she drew herself up from the sofa-corner. She was so tall that the ostrich plumes on her bonnet might have brushed Miss March’s ceiling had they not drooped instead of towering. Miss March had often wondered how her friend managed to have such an air of majesty when everything about her flopped and dangled. “Ah—it’s their secret,” she thought, and rejoiced that at least she could recognize and admire the attribute in her noble English friends. So many of her travelling compatriots seemed not to understand, or even to perceive, the difference. They were the ones who could not see what she “got out” of her little London house, and her little London life.

  Lady Brightlingsea stood in the middle of the room, looking uncertainly about her. At last she said: “We’re going out of town in a fortnight. You must come down to Allfriars later, you know.”

  Miss March’s heart leapt up under her trim black satin bodice. (She wore black often, to set off her still fair complexion.) She could never quite master the excitement of an invitation to Allfriars. In London she did not expect even to be offered a meal; the Brightlingseas always made a short season, and there were so many important people whom they had to invite. Besides, being asked down to stay in the country, en famille, was really much more flattering—more intimate. Miss March felt herself blushing to the roots of her fair curls. “It’s so kind of you, dear Lady Brightlingsea. Of course you know there’s nothing I should like better. I’m never as happy anywhere as at Allfriars.”

  Lady Brightlingsea gave a mirthless laugh. “You’re not like my daughter-in-law. She says she’d as soon spend a month in the family vault. In fact she’d never be with us at all if they hadn’t had to let their house for the season.”

  Miss March’s murmur of horror was inarticulate. Words failed her. These dreadful new Americans—would London ever be able to educate them? In her confusion she followed Lady Brightlingsea to the landing without speaking. There her visitor suddenly turned toward her. “I wish we could marry Seadown,” she said.

  This allusion to the heir of the Brightlingseas was a fresh surprise to Miss March. “But surely—in Lord Seadown’s case it will be only too easy,” she suggested with a playful smile.

  Lady Brightlingsea produced no answering smile. “You must have heard, I suppose, of his wretched entanglement with Lady Churt. It’s much worse, you know, than if she were a disreputable woman. She costs him a great deal more, I mean. And we’ve tried everything… But he won’t look at a nice girl…” She paused, her wistful eyes bent entreatingly on Miss March’s responsive face. “And so, in sheer despair, I thought perhaps, if this friend of my daughter-in-law’s is rich, really rich, it might be better to try… There’s something about these foreigners that seems to attract the young men.”

  Yes—there was, as Jacky March had reason to know. Her own charm had been subtler and more discreet, and in the end it had failed her; but the knowledge that she had possessed it gave her a feeling of affinity with this new band of marauders, social aliens though they were: the wild gipsy who had captured Dick Marable, and her young friends who, two years later, had come out to look over the ground, and do their own capturing.

  Miss March, who was always on her watch-tower, had already sighted and classified them; the serenely lovely Virginia St George, whom Lady Brightlingsea had singled out for Lord Seadown, and her younger sister Nan, negligible as yet compared with Virginia, but odd and interesting too, as her sharp little observer perceived. It was a novel kind of invasion, and Miss March was a-flutter with curiosity, and with an irrepressible sympathy. In Lady Brightlingsea’s company she had quite honestly blushed for the crude intruders; but freed from the shadow of the peerage she felt herself mysteriously akin to them, eager to know more of their plans, and even to play a secret part in the adventure.

  Miss Testvalley was an old friend, and her arrival in London with a family of obscure but wealthy Americans had stirred the depths of Miss March’s social curiosity. She knew from experience that Miss Testvalley would never make imprudent revelations concerning her employers, much less betray their confidence; but her shrewd eye and keen ear must have harvested, in the transatlantic field, much that would be of burning interest to Miss March, and the latter was impatient to resume their talk. So far, she knew only that the St George girls were beautiful, and their parents rich, yet that fashionable New York had rejected them. There was much more to learn, and there was also this strange outbreak of Lady Brightlingsea’s to hint at, if not reveal, to Miss Testvalley.

  It was certainly a pity that their talk had been interrupted by Lady Brightlingsea; yet Miss March would not for the world have missed the latter’s visit, and above all, her unexpected allusion to her eldest son. For years Miss March had carried in her bosom the heavy weight of the Marable affairs, and this reference to Seadown had thrown her into such agitation that she sat down on the sofa and clasped her small wrinkled hands over her anxious heart. Seadown to marry an American—what news to communicate to Laura Testvalley!

  Miss March rose and went quickly to her miniature writing-desk. She wrote a hurried note in her pretty flowing script, sealed it with silver-gray wax, and rang for the beruffled parlour-maid. Then she turned back into the room. It was crowded with velvet-covered tables and quaint corner-shelves, all laden with photographs in heavy silver or morocco frames, surmounted by coronets, from the baronial to the ducal—one, even, royal (in a place of honour by itself, on the mantel). Most of these photographs were of young or middle-aged women, with long necks and calm imperious faces, crowned with diadems or nodded over by court feathers. “Selina Brightlingsea”, “Blanche Tintagel”, “Elfrid
a Marable”, they were signed in tall slanting hands. The hand-writing was as uniform as the features, and nothing but the signatures seemed to differentiate these carven images. But in a corner by itself (pushed behind a lamp at Lady Brightlingsea’s arrival) was one, “To Jacky from her friend Idina Churt”, which Miss March now drew forth and studied with a furtive interest. What chance had an untaught transatlantic beauty against this reprehensible creature, with her tilted nose and impertinent dark fringe? Yet, after studying the portrait for a while, Miss March, as she set it down, simply murmured: “Poor Idina.”

  

  IX.

  In the long summer twilight a father and son were pacing the terrace of an old house called Honourslove, on the edge of the Cotswolds. The irregular silver-gray building, when approached from the village by a drive winding under ancient beech-trees, seemed, like so many old dwellings in England, to lie almost in a hollow, screened to the north by hanging woods, and surveying from its many windows only its own lawns and trees; but the terrace on the other front overlooked an immensity of hill and vale, with huddled village roofs and floating spires. Now, in the twilight, though the sky curved above so clear and luminous, everything below was blurred, and the spires were hardly distinguishable from the tree-trunks; but to the two men strolling up and down before the house long familiarity made every fold of the landscape visible.

  The Cotswolds were in the blood of the Thwartes, and their rule at Honourslove reached back so far that the present baronet, Sir Helmsley Thwarte, had persuaded himself that only by accident (or treachery—he was given to suspecting treachery) had their title to the estate dropped out of Domesday.

  His only son, Guy, was not so sure; but, as Sir Helmsley said, the young respect nothing and believe in nothing, least of all in the validity of tradition. Guy did, however, believe in Honourslove, the beautiful old place which had come to be the first and last article of the family creed. Tradition, as embodied in the ancient walls and the ancient trees of Honourslove, seemed to him as priceless a quality as it did to Sir Helmsley; and indeed he sometimes said to himself that if ever he succeeded to the baronetcy he would be a safer and more vigilant guardian than his father, who loved the place and yet had so often betrayed it.