The Age of Innocence

by Edith Wharton

  XXXII.

  "At the court of the Tuileries," said Mr. Sillerton Jackson with hisreminiscent smile, "such things were pretty openly tolerated."

  The scene was the van der Luydens' black walnut dining-room in MadisonAvenue, and the time the evening after Newland Archer's visit to theMuseum of Art. Mr. and Mrs. van der Luyden had come to town for a fewdays from Skuytercliff, whither they had precipitately fled at theannouncement of Beaufort's failure. It had been represented to themthat the disarray into which society had been thrown by this deplorableaffair made their presence in town more necessary than ever. It wasone of the occasions when, as Mrs. Archer put it, they "owed it tosociety" to show themselves at the Opera, and even to open their owndoors.

  "It will never do, my dear Louisa, to let people like Mrs. LemuelStruthers think they can step into Regina's shoes. It is just at suchtimes that new people push in and get a footing. It was owing to theepidemic of chicken-pox in New York the winter Mrs. Struthers firstappeared that the married men slipped away to her house while theirwives were in the nursery. You and dear Henry, Louisa, must stand inthe breach as you always have."

  Mr. and Mrs. van der Luyden could not remain deaf to such a call, andreluctantly but heroically they had come to town, unmuffled the house,and sent out invitations for two dinners and an evening reception.

  On this particular evening they had invited Sillerton Jackson, Mrs.Archer and Newland and his wife to go with them to the Opera, whereFaust was being sung for the first time that winter. Nothing was donewithout ceremony under the van der Luyden roof, and though there werebut four guests the repast had begun at seven punctually, so that theproper sequence of courses might be served without haste before thegentlemen settled down to their cigars.

  Archer had not seen his wife since the evening before. He had leftearly for the office, where he had plunged into an accumulation ofunimportant business. In the afternoon one of the senior partners hadmade an unexpected call on his time; and he had reached home so latethat May had preceded him to the van der Luydens', and sent back thecarriage.

  Now, across the Skuytercliff carnations and the massive plate, shestruck him as pale and languid; but her eyes shone, and she talked withexaggerated animation.

  The subject which had called forth Mr. Sillerton Jackson's favouriteallusion had been brought up (Archer fancied not without intention) bytheir hostess. The Beaufort failure, or rather the Beaufort attitudesince the failure, was still a fruitful theme for the drawing-roommoralist; and after it had been thoroughly examined and condemned Mrs.van der Luyden had turned her scrupulous eyes on May Archer.

  "Is it possible, dear, that what I hear is true? I was told yourgrandmother Mingott's carriage was seen standing at Mrs. Beaufort'sdoor." It was noticeable that she no longer called the offending ladyby her Christian name.

  May's colour rose, and Mrs. Archer put in hastily: "If it was, I'mconvinced it was there without Mrs. Mingott's knowledge."

  "Ah, you think--?" Mrs. van der Luyden paused, sighed, and glanced ather husband.

  "I'm afraid," Mr. van der Luyden said, "that Madame Olenska's kindheart may have led her into the imprudence of calling on Mrs. Beaufort."

  "Or her taste for peculiar people," put in Mrs. Archer in a dry tone,while her eyes dwelt innocently on her son's.

  "I'm sorry to think it of Madame Olenska," said Mrs. van der Luyden;and Mrs. Archer murmured: "Ah, my dear--and after you'd had her twiceat Skuytercliff!"

  It was at this point that Mr. Jackson seized the chance to place hisfavourite allusion.

  "At the Tuileries," he repeated, seeing the eyes of the companyexpectantly turned on him, "the standard was excessively lax in somerespects; and if you'd asked where Morny's money came from--! Or whopaid the debts of some of the Court beauties ..."

  "I hope, dear Sillerton," said Mrs. Archer, "you are not suggestingthat we should adopt such standards?"

  "I never suggest," returned Mr. Jackson imperturbably. "But MadameOlenska's foreign bringing-up may make her less particular--"

  "Ah," the two elder ladies sighed.

  "Still, to have kept her grandmother's carriage at a defaulter's door!"Mr. van der Luyden protested; and Archer guessed that he wasremembering, and resenting, the hampers of carnations he had sent tothe little house in Twenty-third Street.

  "Of course I've always said that she looks at things quitedifferently," Mrs. Archer summed up.

  A flush rose to May's forehead. She looked across the table at herhusband, and said precipitately: "I'm sure Ellen meant it kindly."

  "Imprudent people are often kind," said Mrs. Archer, as if the factwere scarcely an extenuation; and Mrs. van der Luyden murmured: "Ifonly she had consulted some one--"

  "Ah, that she never did!" Mrs. Archer rejoined.

  At this point Mr. van der Luyden glanced at his wife, who bent her headslightly in the direction of Mrs. Archer; and the glimmering trains ofthe three ladies swept out of the door while the gentlemen settled downto their cigars. Mr. van der Luyden supplied short ones on Operanights; but they were so good that they made his guests deplore hisinexorable punctuality.

  Archer, after the first act, had detached himself from the party andmade his way to the back of the club box. From there he watched, overvarious Chivers, Mingott and Rushworth shoulders, the same scene thathe had looked at, two years previously, on the night of his firstmeeting with Ellen Olenska. He had half-expected her to appear againin old Mrs. Mingott's box, but it remained empty; and he satmotionless, his eyes fastened on it, till suddenly Madame Nilsson'spure soprano broke out into "M'ama, non m'ama ..."

  Archer turned to the stage, where, in the familiar setting of giantroses and pen-wiper pansies, the same large blonde victim wassuccumbing to the same small brown seducer.

  From the stage his eyes wandered to the point of the horseshoe whereMay sat between two older ladies, just as, on that former evening, shehad sat between Mrs. Lovell Mingott and her newly-arrived "foreign"cousin. As on that evening, she was all in white; and Archer, who hadnot noticed what she wore, recognised the blue-white satin and old laceof her wedding dress.

  It was the custom, in old New York, for brides to appear in this costlygarment during the first year or two of marriage: his mother, he knew,kept hers in tissue paper in the hope that Janey might some day wearit, though poor Janey was reaching the age when pearl grey poplin andno bridesmaids would be thought more "appropriate."

  It struck Archer that May, since their return from Europe, had seldomworn her bridal satin, and the surprise of seeing her in it made himcompare her appearance with that of the young girl he had watched withsuch blissful anticipations two years earlier.

  Though May's outline was slightly heavier, as her goddesslike build hadforetold, her athletic erectness of carriage, and the girlishtransparency of her expression, remained unchanged: but for the slightlanguor that Archer had lately noticed in her she would have been theexact image of the girl playing with the bouquet oflilies-of-the-valley on her betrothal evening. The fact seemed anadditional appeal to his pity: such innocence was as moving as thetrustful clasp of a child. Then he remembered the passionategenerosity latent under that incurious calm. He recalled her glance ofunderstanding when he had urged that their engagement should beannounced at the Beaufort ball; he heard the voice in which she hadsaid, in the Mission garden: "I couldn't have my happiness made out ofa wrong--a wrong to some one else;" and an uncontrollable longingseized him to tell her the truth, to throw himself on her generosity,and ask for the freedom he had once refused.

  Newland Archer was a quiet and self-controlled young man. Conformityto the discipline of a small society had become almost his secondnature. It was deeply distasteful to him to do anything melodramaticand conspicuous, anything Mr. van der Luyden would have deprecated andthe club box condemned as bad form. But he had become suddenlyunconscious of the club box, of Mr. van der Luyden, of all that had solong enclosed him in the warm shelter of habit. He walked along thesemi-circular pass
age at the back of the house, and opened the door ofMrs. van der Luyden's box as if it had been a gate into the unknown.

  "M'ama!" thrilled out the triumphant Marguerite; and the occupants ofthe box looked up in surprise at Archer's entrance. He had alreadybroken one of the rules of his world, which forbade the entering of abox during a solo.

  Slipping between Mr. van der Luyden and Sillerton Jackson, he leanedover his wife.

  "I've got a beastly headache; don't tell any one, but come home, won'tyou?" he whispered.

  May gave him a glance of comprehension, and he saw her whisper to hismother, who nodded sympathetically; then she murmured an excuse to Mrs.van der Luyden, and rose from her seat just as Marguerite fell intoFaust's arms. Archer, while he helped her on with her Opera cloak,noticed the exchange of a significant smile between the older ladies.

  As they drove away May laid her hand shyly on his. "I'm so sorry youdon't feel well. I'm afraid they've been overworking you again at theoffice."

  "No--it's not that: do you mind if I open the window?" he returnedconfusedly, letting down the pane on his side. He sat staring out intothe street, feeling his wife beside him as a silent watchfulinterrogation, and keeping his eyes steadily fixed on the passinghouses. At their door she caught her skirt in the step of thecarriage, and fell against him.

  "Did you hurt yourself?" he asked, steadying her with his arm.

  "No; but my poor dress--see how I've torn it!" she exclaimed. She bentto gather up a mud-stained breadth, and followed him up the steps intothe hall. The servants had not expected them so early, and there wasonly a glimmer of gas on the upper landing.

  Archer mounted the stairs, turned up the light, and put a match to thebrackets on each side of the library mantelpiece. The curtains weredrawn, and the warm friendly aspect of the room smote him like that ofa familiar face met during an unavowable errand.

  He noticed that his wife was very pale, and asked if he should get hersome brandy.

  "Oh, no," she exclaimed with a momentary flush, as she took off hercloak. "But hadn't you better go to bed at once?" she added, as heopened a silver box on the table and took out a cigarette.

  Archer threw down the cigarette and walked to his usual place by thefire.

  "No; my head is not as bad as that." He paused. "And there'ssomething I want to say; something important--that I must tell you atonce."

  She had dropped into an armchair, and raised her head as he spoke."Yes, dear?" she rejoined, so gently that he wondered at the lack ofwonder with which she received this preamble.

  "May--" he began, standing a few feet from her chair, and looking overat her as if the slight distance between them were an unbridgeableabyss. The sound of his voice echoed uncannily through the homelikehush, and he repeated: "There is something I've got to tell you ...about myself ..."

  She sat silent, without a movement or a tremor of her lashes. She wasstill extremely pale, but her face had a curious tranquillity ofexpression that seemed drawn from some secret inner source.

  Archer checked the conventional phrases of self-accusal that werecrowding to his lips. He was determined to put the case baldly,without vain recrimination or excuse.

  "Madame Olenska--" he said; but at the name his wife raised her hand asif to silence him. As she did so the gaslight struck on the gold ofher wedding-ring.

  "Oh, why should we talk about Ellen tonight?" she asked, with a slightpout of impatience.

  "Because I ought to have spoken before."

  Her face remained calm. "Is it really worth while, dear? I know I'vebeen unfair to her at times--perhaps we all have. You've understoodher, no doubt, better than we did: you've always been kind to her. Butwhat does it matter, now it's all over?"

  Archer looked at her blankly. Could it be possible that the sense ofunreality in which he felt himself imprisoned had communicated itselfto his wife?

  "All over--what do you mean?" he asked in an indistinct stammer.

  May still looked at him with transparent eyes. "Why--since she's goingback to Europe so soon; since Granny approves and understands, and hasarranged to make her independent of her husband--"

  She broke off, and Archer, grasping the corner of the mantelpiece inone convulsed hand, and steadying himself against it, made a vaineffort to extend the same control to his reeling thoughts.

  "I supposed," he heard his wife's even voice go on, "that you had beenkept at the office this evening about the business arrangements. Itwas settled this morning, I believe." She lowered her eyes under hisunseeing stare, and another fugitive flush passed over her face.

  He understood that his own eyes must be unbearable, and turning away,rested his elbows on the mantel-shelf and covered his face. Somethingdrummed and clanged furiously in his ears; he could not tell if it werethe blood in his veins, or the tick of the clock on the mantel.

  May sat without moving or speaking while the clock slowly measured outfive minutes. A lump of coal fell forward in the grate, and hearingher rise to push it back, Archer at length turned and faced her.

  "It's impossible," he exclaimed.

  "Impossible--?"

  "How do you know--what you've just told me?"

  "I saw Ellen yesterday--I told you I'd seen her at Granny's."

  "It wasn't then that she told you?"

  "No; I had a note from her this afternoon.--Do you want to see it?"

  He could not find his voice, and she went out of the room, and cameback almost immediately.

  "I thought you knew," she said simply.

  She laid a sheet of paper on the table, and Archer put out his hand andtook it up. The letter contained only a few lines.

  "May dear, I have at last made Granny understand that my visit to hercould be no more than a visit; and she has been as kind and generous asever. She sees now that if I return to Europe I must live by myself,or rather with poor Aunt Medora, who is coming with me. I am hurryingback to Washington to pack up, and we sail next week. You must be verygood to Granny when I'm gone--as good as you've always been to me.Ellen.

  "If any of my friends wish to urge me to change my mind, please tellthem it would be utterly useless."

  Archer read the letter over two or three times; then he flung it downand burst out laughing.

  The sound of his laugh startled him. It recalled Janey's midnightfright when she had caught him rocking with incomprehensible mirth overMay's telegram announcing that the date of their marriage had beenadvanced.

  "Why did she write this?" he asked, checking his laugh with a supremeeffort.

  May met the question with her unshaken candour. "I suppose because wetalked things over yesterday--"

  "What things?"

  "I told her I was afraid I hadn't been fair to her--hadn't alwaysunderstood how hard it must have been for her here, alone among so manypeople who were relations and yet strangers; who felt the right tocriticise, and yet didn't always know the circumstances." She paused."I knew you'd been the one friend she could always count on; and Iwanted her to know that you and I were the same--in all our feelings."

  She hesitated, as if waiting for him to speak, and then added slowly:"She understood my wishing to tell her this. I think she understandseverything."

  She went up to Archer, and taking one of his cold hands pressed itquickly against her cheek.

  "My head aches too; good-night, dear," she said, and turned to thedoor, her torn and muddy wedding-dress dragging after her across theroom.