The Age of Innocence

by Edith Wharton

  II.

  Newland Archer, during this brief episode, had been thrown into astrange state of embarrassment.

  It was annoying that the box which was thus attracting the undividedattention of masculine New York should be that in which his betrothedwas seated between her mother and aunt; and for a moment he could notidentify the lady in the Empire dress, nor imagine why her presencecreated such excitement among the initiated. Then light dawned on him,and with it came a momentary rush of indignation. No, indeed; no onewould have thought the Mingotts would have tried it on!

  But they had; they undoubtedly had; for the low-toned comments behindhim left no doubt in Archer's mind that the young woman was MayWelland's cousin, the cousin always referred to in the family as "poorEllen Olenska." Archer knew that she had suddenly arrived from Europea day or two previously; he had even heard from Miss Welland (notdisapprovingly) that she had been to see poor Ellen, who was stayingwith old Mrs. Mingott. Archer entirely approved of family solidarity,and one of the qualities he most admired in the Mingotts was theirresolute championship of the few black sheep that their blameless stockhad produced. There was nothing mean or ungenerous in the young man'sheart, and he was glad that his future wife should not be restrained byfalse prudery from being kind (in private) to her unhappy cousin; butto receive Countess Olenska in the family circle was a different thingfrom producing her in public, at the Opera of all places, and in thevery box with the young girl whose engagement to him, Newland Archer,was to be announced within a few weeks. No, he felt as old SillertonJackson felt; he did not think the Mingotts would have tried it on!

  He knew, of course, that whatever man dared (within Fifth Avenue'slimits) that old Mrs. Manson Mingott, the Matriarch of the line, woulddare. He had always admired the high and mighty old lady, who, inspite of having been only Catherine Spicer of Staten Island, with afather mysteriously discredited, and neither money nor position enoughto make people forget it, had allied herself with the head of thewealthy Mingott line, married two of her daughters to "foreigners" (anItalian marquis and an English banker), and put the crowning touch toher audacities by building a large house of pale cream-coloured stone(when brown sandstone seemed as much the only wear as a frock-coat inthe afternoon) in an inaccessible wilderness near the Central Park.

  Old Mrs. Mingott's foreign daughters had become a legend. They nevercame back to see their mother, and the latter being, like many personsof active mind and dominating will, sedentary and corpulent in herhabit, had philosophically remained at home. But the cream-colouredhouse (supposed to be modelled on the private hotels of the Parisianaristocracy) was there as a visible proof of her moral courage; and shethroned in it, among pre-Revolutionary furniture and souvenirs of theTuileries of Louis Napoleon (where she had shone in her middle age), asplacidly as if there were nothing peculiar in living aboveThirty-fourth Street, or in having French windows that opened likedoors instead of sashes that pushed up.

  Every one (including Mr. Sillerton Jackson) was agreed that oldCatherine had never had beauty--a gift which, in the eyes of New York,justified every success, and excused a certain number of failings.Unkind people said that, like her Imperial namesake, she had won herway to success by strength of will and hardness of heart, and a kind ofhaughty effrontery that was somehow justified by the extreme decencyand dignity of her private life. Mr. Manson Mingott had died when shewas only twenty-eight, and had "tied up" the money with an additionalcaution born of the general distrust of the Spicers; but his bold youngwidow went her way fearlessly, mingled freely in foreign society,married her daughters in heaven knew what corrupt and fashionablecircles, hobnobbed with Dukes and Ambassadors, associated familiarlywith Papists, entertained Opera singers, and was the intimate friend ofMme. Taglioni; and all the while (as Sillerton Jackson was the first toproclaim) there had never been a breath on her reputation; the onlyrespect, he always added, in which she differed from the earlierCatherine.

  Mrs. Manson Mingott had long since succeeded in untying her husband'sfortune, and had lived in affluence for half a century; but memories ofher early straits had made her excessively thrifty, and though, whenshe bought a dress or a piece of furniture, she took care that itshould be of the best, she could not bring herself to spend much on thetransient pleasures of the table. Therefore, for totally differentreasons, her food was as poor as Mrs. Archer's, and her wines didnothing to redeem it. Her relatives considered that the penury of hertable discredited the Mingott name, which had always been associatedwith good living; but people continued to come to her in spite of the"made dishes" and flat champagne, and in reply to the remonstrances ofher son Lovell (who tried to retrieve the family credit by having thebest chef in New York) she used to say laughingly: "What's the use oftwo good cooks in one family, now that I've married the girls and can'teat sauces?"

  Newland Archer, as he mused on these things, had once more turned hiseyes toward the Mingott box. He saw that Mrs. Welland and hersister-in-law were facing their semicircle of critics with theMingottian APLOMB which old Catherine had inculcated in all her tribe,and that only May Welland betrayed, by a heightened colour (perhaps dueto the knowledge that he was watching her) a sense of the gravity ofthe situation. As for the cause of the commotion, she sat gracefullyin her corner of the box, her eyes fixed on the stage, and revealing,as she leaned forward, a little more shoulder and bosom than New Yorkwas accustomed to seeing, at least in ladies who had reasons forwishing to pass unnoticed.

  Few things seemed to Newland Archer more awful than an offence against"Taste," that far-off divinity of whom "Form" was the mere visiblerepresentative and vicegerent. Madame Olenska's pale and serious faceappealed to his fancy as suited to the occasion and to her unhappysituation; but the way her dress (which had no tucker) sloped away fromher thin shoulders shocked and troubled him. He hated to think of MayWelland's being exposed to the influence of a young woman so carelessof the dictates of Taste.

  "After all," he heard one of the younger men begin behind him(everybody talked through the Mephistopheles-and-Martha scenes), "afterall, just WHAT happened?"

  "Well--she left him; nobody attempts to deny that."

  "He's an awful brute, isn't he?" continued the young enquirer, a candidThorley, who was evidently preparing to enter the lists as the lady'schampion.

  "The very worst; I knew him at Nice," said Lawrence Lefferts withauthority. "A half-paralysed white sneering fellow--rather handsomehead, but eyes with a lot of lashes. Well, I'll tell you the sort:when he wasn't with women he was collecting china. Paying any pricefor both, I understand."

  There was a general laugh, and the young champion said: "Well,then----?"

  "Well, then; she bolted with his secretary."

  "Oh, I see." The champion's face fell.

  "It didn't last long, though: I heard of her a few months later livingalone in Venice. I believe Lovell Mingott went out to get her. Hesaid she was desperately unhappy. That's all right--but this paradingher at the Opera's another thing."

  "Perhaps," young Thorley hazarded, "she's too unhappy to be left athome."

  This was greeted with an irreverent laugh, and the youth blusheddeeply, and tried to look as if he had meant to insinuate what knowingpeople called a "double entendre."

  "Well--it's queer to have brought Miss Welland, anyhow," some one saidin a low tone, with a side-glance at Archer.

  "Oh, that's part of the campaign: Granny's orders, no doubt," Leffertslaughed. "When the old lady does a thing she does it thoroughly."

  The act was ending, and there was a general stir in the box. SuddenlyNewland Archer felt himself impelled to decisive action. The desire tobe the first man to enter Mrs. Mingott's box, to proclaim to thewaiting world his engagement to May Welland, and to see her throughwhatever difficulties her cousin's anomalous situation might involveher in; this impulse had abruptly overruled all scruples andhesitations, and sent him hurrying through the red corridors to thefarther side of the house.

  As he entered the
box his eyes met Miss Welland's, and he saw that shehad instantly understood his motive, though the family dignity whichboth considered so high a virtue would not permit her to tell him so.The persons of their world lived in an atmosphere of faint implicationsand pale delicacies, and the fact that he and she understood each otherwithout a word seemed to the young man to bring them nearer than anyexplanation would have done. Her eyes said: "You see why Mammabrought me," and his answered: "I would not for the world have had youstay away."

  "You know my niece Countess Olenska?" Mrs. Welland enquired as sheshook hands with her future son-in-law. Archer bowed without extendinghis hand, as was the custom on being introduced to a lady; and EllenOlenska bent her head slightly, keeping her own pale-gloved handsclasped on her huge fan of eagle feathers. Having greeted Mrs. LovellMingott, a large blonde lady in creaking satin, he sat down beside hisbetrothed, and said in a low tone: "I hope you've told Madame Olenskathat we're engaged? I want everybody to know--I want you to let meannounce it this evening at the ball."

  Miss Welland's face grew rosy as the dawn, and she looked at him withradiant eyes. "If you can persuade Mamma," she said; "but why shouldwe change what is already settled?" He made no answer but that whichhis eyes returned, and she added, still more confidently smiling:"Tell my cousin yourself: I give you leave. She says she used to playwith you when you were children."

  She made way for him by pushing back her chair, and promptly, and alittle ostentatiously, with the desire that the whole house should seewhat he was doing, Archer seated himself at the Countess Olenska's side.

  "We DID use to play together, didn't we?" she asked, turning her graveeyes to his. "You were a horrid boy, and kissed me once behind a door;but it was your cousin Vandie Newland, who never looked at me, that Iwas in love with." Her glance swept the horse-shoe curve of boxes."Ah, how this brings it all back to me--I see everybody here inknickerbockers and pantalettes," she said, with her trailing slightlyforeign accent, her eyes returning to his face.

  Agreeable as their expression was, the young man was shocked that theyshould reflect so unseemly a picture of the august tribunal beforewhich, at that very moment, her case was being tried. Nothing could bein worse taste than misplaced flippancy; and he answered somewhatstiffly: "Yes, you have been away a very long time."

  "Oh, centuries and centuries; so long," she said, "that I'm sure I'mdead and buried, and this dear old place is heaven;" which, for reasonshe could not define, struck Newland Archer as an even moredisrespectful way of describing New York society.