The Age of Innocence

by Edith Wharton

  IX.

  The Countess Olenska had said "after five"; and at half after the hourNewland Archer rang the bell of the peeling stucco house with a giantwisteria throttling its feeble cast-iron balcony, which she had hired,far down West Twenty-third Street, from the vagabond Medora.

  It was certainly a strange quarter to have settled in. Smalldress-makers, bird-stuffers and "people who wrote" were her nearestneighbours; and further down the dishevelled street Archer recognised adilapidated wooden house, at the end of a paved path, in which a writerand journalist called Winsett, whom he used to come across now andthen, had mentioned that he lived. Winsett did not invite people tohis house; but he had once pointed it out to Archer in the course of anocturnal stroll, and the latter had asked himself, with a littleshiver, if the humanities were so meanly housed in other capitals.

  Madame Olenska's own dwelling was redeemed from the same appearanceonly by a little more paint about the window-frames; and as Archermustered its modest front he said to himself that the Polish Count musthave robbed her of her fortune as well as of her illusions.

  The young man had spent an unsatisfactory day. He had lunched with theWellands, hoping afterward to carry off May for a walk in the Park. Hewanted to have her to himself, to tell her how enchanting she hadlooked the night before, and how proud he was of her, and to press herto hasten their marriage. But Mrs. Welland had firmly reminded himthat the round of family visits was not half over, and, when he hintedat advancing the date of the wedding, had raised reproachful eye-browsand sighed out: "Twelve dozen of everything--hand-embroidered--"

  Packed in the family landau they rolled from one tribal doorstep toanother, and Archer, when the afternoon's round was over, parted fromhis betrothed with the feeling that he had been shown off like a wildanimal cunningly trapped. He supposed that his readings inanthropology caused him to take such a coarse view of what was afterall a simple and natural demonstration of family feeling; but when heremembered that the Wellands did not expect the wedding to take placetill the following autumn, and pictured what his life would be tillthen, a dampness fell upon his spirit.

  "Tomorrow," Mrs. Welland called after him, "we'll do the Chiverses andthe Dallases"; and he perceived that she was going through their twofamilies alphabetically, and that they were only in the first quarterof the alphabet.

  He had meant to tell May of the Countess Olenska's request--hercommand, rather--that he should call on her that afternoon; but in thebrief moments when they were alone he had had more pressing things tosay. Besides, it struck him as a little absurd to allude to thematter. He knew that May most particularly wanted him to be kind toher cousin; was it not that wish which had hastened the announcement oftheir engagement? It gave him an odd sensation to reflect that, butfor the Countess's arrival, he might have been, if not still a freeman, at least a man less irrevocably pledged. But May had willed itso, and he felt himself somehow relieved of further responsibility--andtherefore at liberty, if he chose, to call on her cousin withouttelling her.

  As he stood on Madame Olenska's threshold curiosity was his uppermostfeeling. He was puzzled by the tone in which she had summoned him; heconcluded that she was less simple than she seemed.

  The door was opened by a swarthy foreign-looking maid, with a prominentbosom under a gay neckerchief, whom he vaguely fancied to be Sicilian.She welcomed him with all her white teeth, and answering his enquiriesby a head-shake of incomprehension led him through the narrow hall intoa low firelit drawing-room. The room was empty, and she left him, foran appreciable time, to wonder whether she had gone to find hermistress, or whether she had not understood what he was there for, andthought it might be to wind the clock--of which he perceived that theonly visible specimen had stopped. He knew that the southern racescommunicated with each other in the language of pantomime, and wasmortified to find her shrugs and smiles so unintelligible. At lengthshe returned with a lamp; and Archer, having meanwhile put together aphrase out of Dante and Petrarch, evoked the answer: "La signora efuori; ma verra subito"; which he took to mean: "She's out--but you'llsoon see."

  What he saw, meanwhile, with the help of the lamp, was the fadedshadowy charm of a room unlike any room he had known. He knew that theCountess Olenska had brought some of her possessions with her--bits ofwreckage, she called them--and these, he supposed, were represented bysome small slender tables of dark wood, a delicate little Greek bronzeon the chimney-piece, and a stretch of red damask nailed on thediscoloured wallpaper behind a couple of Italian-looking pictures inold frames.

  Newland Archer prided himself on his knowledge of Italian art. Hisboyhood had been saturated with Ruskin, and he had read all the latestbooks: John Addington Symonds, Vernon Lee's "Euphorion," the essays ofP. G. Hamerton, and a wonderful new volume called "The Renaissance" byWalter Pater. He talked easily of Botticelli, and spoke of FraAngelico with a faint condescension. But these pictures bewilderedhim, for they were like nothing that he was accustomed to look at (andtherefore able to see) when he travelled in Italy; and perhaps, also,his powers of observation were impaired by the oddness of findinghimself in this strange empty house, where apparently no one expectedhim. He was sorry that he had not told May Welland of CountessOlenska's request, and a little disturbed by the thought that hisbetrothed might come in to see her cousin. What would she think if shefound him sitting there with the air of intimacy implied by waitingalone in the dusk at a lady's fireside?

  But since he had come he meant to wait; and he sank into a chair andstretched his feet to the logs.

  It was odd to have summoned him in that way, and then forgotten him;but Archer felt more curious than mortified. The atmosphere of theroom was so different from any he had ever breathed thatself-consciousness vanished in the sense of adventure. He had beenbefore in drawing-rooms hung with red damask, with pictures "of theItalian school"; what struck him was the way in which Medora Manson'sshabby hired house, with its blighted background of pampas grass andRogers statuettes, had, by a turn of the hand, and the skilful use of afew properties, been transformed into something intimate, "foreign,"subtly suggestive of old romantic scenes and sentiments. He tried toanalyse the trick, to find a clue to it in the way the chairs andtables were grouped, in the fact that only two Jacqueminot roses (ofwhich nobody ever bought less than a dozen) had been placed in theslender vase at his elbow, and in the vague pervading perfume that wasnot what one put on handkerchiefs, but rather like the scent of somefar-off bazaar, a smell made up of Turkish coffee and ambergris anddried roses.

  His mind wandered away to the question of what May's drawing-room wouldlook like. He knew that Mr. Welland, who was behaving "veryhandsomely," already had his eye on a newly built house in EastThirty-ninth Street. The neighbourhood was thought remote, and thehouse was built in a ghastly greenish-yellow stone that the youngerarchitects were beginning to employ as a protest against the brownstoneof which the uniform hue coated New York like a cold chocolate sauce;but the plumbing was perfect. Archer would have liked to travel, toput off the housing question; but, though the Wellands approved of anextended European honeymoon (perhaps even a winter in Egypt), they werefirm as to the need of a house for the returning couple. The young manfelt that his fate was sealed: for the rest of his life he would go upevery evening between the cast-iron railings of that greenish-yellowdoorstep, and pass through a Pompeian vestibule into a hall with awainscoting of varnished yellow wood. But beyond that his imaginationcould not travel. He knew the drawing-room above had a bay window, buthe could not fancy how May would deal with it. She submittedcheerfully to the purple satin and yellow tuftings of the Wellanddrawing-room, to its sham Buhl tables and gilt vitrines full of modernSaxe. He saw no reason to suppose that she would want anythingdifferent in her own house; and his only comfort was to reflect thatshe would probably let him arrange his library as he pleased--whichwould be, of course, with "sincere" Eastlake furniture, and the plainnew bookcases without glass doors.

  The round-bosomed maid came in
, drew the curtains, pushed back a log,and said consolingly: "Verra--verra." When she had gone Archer stoodup and began to wander about. Should he wait any longer? His positionwas becoming rather foolish. Perhaps he had misunderstood MadameOlenska--perhaps she had not invited him after all.

  Down the cobblestones of the quiet street came the ring of a stepper'shoofs; they stopped before the house, and he caught the opening of acarriage door. Parting the curtains he looked out into the early dusk.A street-lamp faced him, and in its light he saw Julius Beaufort'scompact English brougham, drawn by a big roan, and the bankerdescending from it, and helping out Madame Olenska.

  Beaufort stood, hat in hand, saying something which his companionseemed to negative; then they shook hands, and he jumped into hiscarriage while she mounted the steps.

  When she entered the room she showed no surprise at seeing Archerthere; surprise seemed the emotion that she was least addicted to.

  "How do you like my funny house?" she asked. "To me it's like heaven."

  As she spoke she untied her little velvet bonnet and tossing it awaywith her long cloak stood looking at him with meditative eyes.

  "You've arranged it delightfully," he rejoined, alive to the flatnessof the words, but imprisoned in the conventional by his consumingdesire to be simple and striking.

  "Oh, it's a poor little place. My relations despise it. But at anyrate it's less gloomy than the van der Luydens'."

  The words gave him an electric shock, for few were the rebelliousspirits who would have dared to call the stately home of the van derLuydens gloomy. Those privileged to enter it shivered there, and spokeof it as "handsome." But suddenly he was glad that she had given voiceto the general shiver.

  "It's delicious--what you've done here," he repeated.

  "I like the little house," she admitted; "but I suppose what I like isthe blessedness of its being here, in my own country and my own town;and then, of being alone in it." She spoke so low that he hardly heardthe last phrase; but in his awkwardness he took it up.

  "You like so much to be alone?"

  "Yes; as long as my friends keep me from feeling lonely." She sat downnear the fire, said: "Nastasia will bring the tea presently," andsigned to him to return to his armchair, adding: "I see you've alreadychosen your corner."

  Leaning back, she folded her arms behind her head, and looked at thefire under drooping lids.

  "This is the hour I like best--don't you?"

  A proper sense of his dignity caused him to answer: "I was afraid you'dforgotten the hour. Beaufort must have been very engrossing."

  She looked amused. "Why--have you waited long? Mr. Beaufort took meto see a number of houses--since it seems I'm not to be allowed to stayin this one." She appeared to dismiss both Beaufort and himself fromher mind, and went on: "I've never been in a city where there seems tobe such a feeling against living in des quartiers excentriques. Whatdoes it matter where one lives? I'm told this street is respectable."

  "It's not fashionable."

  "Fashionable! Do you all think so much of that? Why not make one'sown fashions? But I suppose I've lived too independently; at any rate,I want to do what you all do--I want to feel cared for and safe."

  He was touched, as he had been the evening before when she spoke of herneed of guidance.

  "That's what your friends want you to feel. New York's an awfully safeplace," he added with a flash of sarcasm.

  "Yes, isn't it? One feels that," she cried, missing the mockery."Being here is like--like--being taken on a holiday when one has been agood little girl and done all one's lessons."

  The analogy was well meant, but did not altogether please him. He didnot mind being flippant about New York, but disliked to hear any oneelse take the same tone. He wondered if she did not begin to see whata powerful engine it was, and how nearly it had crushed her. TheLovell Mingotts' dinner, patched up in extremis out of all sorts ofsocial odds and ends, ought to have taught her the narrowness of herescape; but either she had been all along unaware of having skirteddisaster, or else she had lost sight of it in the triumph of the vander Luyden evening. Archer inclined to the former theory; he fanciedthat her New York was still completely undifferentiated, and theconjecture nettled him.

  "Last night," he said, "New York laid itself out for you. The van derLuydens do nothing by halves."

  "No: how kind they are! It was such a nice party. Every one seems tohave such an esteem for them."

  The terms were hardly adequate; she might have spoken in that way of atea-party at the dear old Miss Lannings'.

  "The van der Luydens," said Archer, feeling himself pompous as hespoke, "are the most powerful influence in New York society.Unfortunately--owing to her health--they receive very seldom."

  She unclasped her hands from behind her head, and looked at himmeditatively.

  "Isn't that perhaps the reason?"

  "The reason--?"

  "For their great influence; that they make themselves so rare."

  He coloured a little, stared at her--and suddenly felt the penetrationof the remark. At a stroke she had pricked the van der Luydens andthey collapsed. He laughed, and sacrificed them.

  Nastasia brought the tea, with handleless Japanese cups and littlecovered dishes, placing the tray on a low table.

  "But you'll explain these things to me--you'll tell me all I ought toknow," Madame Olenska continued, leaning forward to hand him his cup.

  "It's you who are telling me; opening my eyes to things I'd looked atso long that I'd ceased to see them."

  She detached a small gold cigarette-case from one of her bracelets,held it out to him, and took a cigarette herself. On the chimney werelong spills for lighting them.

  "Ah, then we can both help each other. But I want help so much more.You must tell me just what to do."

  It was on the tip of his tongue to reply: "Don't be seen driving aboutthe streets with Beaufort--" but he was being too deeply drawn into theatmosphere of the room, which was her atmosphere, and to give advice ofthat sort would have been like telling some one who was bargaining forattar-of-roses in Samarkand that one should always be provided witharctics for a New York winter. New York seemed much farther off thanSamarkand, and if they were indeed to help each other she was renderingwhat might prove the first of their mutual services by making him lookat his native city objectively. Viewed thus, as through the wrong endof a telescope, it looked disconcertingly small and distant; but thenfrom Samarkand it would.

  A flame darted from the logs and she bent over the fire, stretching herthin hands so close to it that a faint halo shone about the oval nails.The light touched to russet the rings of dark hair escaping from herbraids, and made her pale face paler.

  "There are plenty of people to tell you what to do," Archer rejoined,obscurely envious of them.

  "Oh--all my aunts? And my dear old Granny?" She considered the ideaimpartially. "They're all a little vexed with me for setting up formyself--poor Granny especially. She wanted to keep me with her; but Ihad to be free--" He was impressed by this light way of speaking ofthe formidable Catherine, and moved by the thought of what must havegiven Madame Olenska this thirst for even the loneliest kind offreedom. But the idea of Beaufort gnawed him.

  "I think I understand how you feel," he said. "Still, your family canadvise you; explain differences; show you the way."

  She lifted her thin black eyebrows. "Is New York such a labyrinth? Ithought it so straight up and down--like Fifth Avenue. And with allthe cross streets numbered!" She seemed to guess his faint disapprovalof this, and added, with the rare smile that enchanted her whole face:"If you knew how I like it for just THAT--the straight-up-and-downness,and the big honest labels on everything!"

  He saw his chance. "Everything may be labelled--but everybody is not."

  "Perhaps. I may simplify too much--but you'll warn me if I do." Sheturned from the fire to look at him. "There are only two people herewho make me feel as if they understood what I mean a
nd could explainthings to me: you and Mr. Beaufort."

  Archer winced at the joining of the names, and then, with a quickreadjustment, understood, sympathised and pitied. So close to thepowers of evil she must have lived that she still breathed more freelyin their air. But since she felt that he understood her also, hisbusiness would be to make her see Beaufort as he really was, with allhe represented--and abhor it.

  He answered gently: "I understand. But just at first don't let go ofyour old friends' hands: I mean the older women, your Granny Mingott,Mrs. Welland, Mrs. van der Luyden. They like and admire you--they wantto help you."

  She shook her head and sighed. "Oh, I know--I know! But on conditionthat they don't hear anything unpleasant. Aunt Welland put it in thosevery words when I tried.... Does no one want to know the truth here,Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind peoplewho only ask one to pretend!" She lifted her hands to her face, and hesaw her thin shoulders shaken by a sob.

  "Madame Olenska!--Oh, don't, Ellen," he cried, starting up and bendingover her. He drew down one of her hands, clasping and chafing it likea child's while he murmured reassuring words; but in a moment she freedherself, and looked up at him with wet lashes.

  "Does no one cry here, either? I suppose there's no need to, inheaven," she said, straightening her loosened braids with a laugh, andbending over the tea-kettle. It was burnt into his consciousness thathe had called her "Ellen"--called her so twice; and that she had notnoticed it. Far down the inverted telescope he saw the faint whitefigure of May Welland--in New York.

  Suddenly Nastasia put her head in to say something in her rich Italian.

  Madame Olenska, again with a hand at her hair, uttered an exclamationof assent--a flashing "Gia--gia"--and the Duke of St. Austrey entered,piloting a tremendous blackwigged and red-plumed lady in overflowingfurs.

  "My dear Countess, I've brought an old friend of mine to see you--Mrs.Struthers. She wasn't asked to the party last night, and she wants toknow you."

  The Duke beamed on the group, and Madame Olenska advanced with a murmurof welcome toward the queer couple. She seemed to have no idea howoddly matched they were, nor what a liberty the Duke had taken inbringing his companion--and to do him justice, as Archer perceived, theDuke seemed as unaware of it himself.

  "Of course I want to know you, my dear," cried Mrs. Struthers in around rolling voice that matched her bold feathers and her brazen wig."I want to know everybody who's young and interesting and charming.And the Duke tells me you like music--didn't you, Duke? You're apianist yourself, I believe? Well, do you want to hear Sarasate playtomorrow evening at my house? You know I've something going on everySunday evening--it's the day when New York doesn't know what to do withitself, and so I say to it: 'Come and be amused.' And the Dukethought you'd be tempted by Sarasate. You'll find a number of yourfriends."

  Madame Olenska's face grew brilliant with pleasure. "How kind! Howgood of the Duke to think of me!" She pushed a chair up to thetea-table and Mrs. Struthers sank into it delectably. "Of course Ishall be too happy to come."

  "That's all right, my dear. And bring your young gentleman with you."Mrs. Struthers extended a hail-fellow hand to Archer. "I can't put aname to you--but I'm sure I've met you--I've met everybody, here, or inParis or London. Aren't you in diplomacy? All the diplomatists cometo me. You like music too? Duke, you must be sure to bring him."

  The Duke said "Rather" from the depths of his beard, and Archerwithdrew with a stiffly circular bow that made him feel as full ofspine as a self-conscious school-boy among careless and unnoticingelders.

  He was not sorry for the denouement of his visit: he only wished it hadcome sooner, and spared him a certain waste of emotion. As he went outinto the wintry night, New York again became vast and imminent, and MayWelland the loveliest woman in it. He turned into his florist's tosend her the daily box of lilies-of-the-valley which, to his confusion,he found he had forgotten that morning.

  As he wrote a word on his card and waited for an envelope he glancedabout the embowered shop, and his eye lit on a cluster of yellow roses.He had never seen any as sun-golden before, and his first impulse wasto send them to May instead of the lilies. But they did not look likeher--there was something too rich, too strong, in their fiery beauty.In a sudden revulsion of mood, and almost without knowing what he did,he signed to the florist to lay the roses in another long box, andslipped his card into a second envelope, on which he wrote the name ofthe Countess Olenska; then, just as he was turning away, he drew thecard out again, and left the empty envelope on the box.

  "They'll go at once?" he enquired, pointing to the roses.

  The florist assured him that they would.