The Custom of the Country

by Edith Wharton

  Undine, radiantly challenging comparison with her portrait, glanced up at it with a smile of conscious merit, which deepened as young Jim Driscoll declared: ‘By Jove, Mamie, you must be done exactly like that for the new music-room.’

  His wife turned a cautious eye upon the picture.

  ‘How big is it? For our house it would have to be a good deal bigger,’ she objected; and Popple, fired by the thought of such a dimensional opportunity, rejoined that it would be the chance of all others to ‘work in’ a marble portico and a court-train: he had just done Mrs Lycurgus Ambler in a court-train and feathers, and as that was for Buffalo of course the pictures needn’t clash.

  ‘Well, it would have to be a good deal bigger than Mrs Ambler’s,’ Mrs Driscoll insisted; and on Popple’s suggestion that in that case he might ‘work in’ Driscoll, in court-dress also – (‘You’ve been presented? Well, you will be, – you’ll have to, if I do the picture – which will make a lovely memento’) – Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: ‘Pure bluff, you know – Jim couldn’t pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll’s high and dry since the Ararat investigation.’

  She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue.

  ‘You mean they’ve lost their money? Won’t they give their fancy ball, then?’

  Van Degen shrugged. ‘Nobody knows how it’s coming out. That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball – says he’s going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways.’

  Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen’s announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt’s name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the ‘Ararat Trust Investigation’, but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half-ridiculed, yet already half-redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt – the Elmer Moffatt of Apex! – could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he ‘saw things big’; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be ‘loafing and fooling’, as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture.

  Mrs Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. ‘Oh, it’s a likeness, of course – I can see that; but there’s one thing I must say, Mr Popple. It looks like a last year’s dress.’

  The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge.

  ‘It doesn’t look like a last year’s face, anyhow – that’s what makes them all wild,’ Van Degen murmured.

  Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple’s tea.

  But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back.

  ‘Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What’s up?’ Van Degen asked as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio.

  ‘I don’t know – I’m tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot.’

  ‘Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold.’ Van Degen glanced at his watch. ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘West End Avenue, of course – if I can find a cab to take me there.’

  It was not the least of Undine’s grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr Spragg’s first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr Spragg’s financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, moreover, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy’s birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house.

  But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother’s plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation – the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: ‘Do let me give you a lift home, dear – Oh, I’d forgotten! I’m afraid I haven’t the time to go so far –’

  It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on ‘lifts’, openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!); but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being ‘out of things’.

  Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled street, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes.

  ‘Of course you won’t get a cab on a night like this. If you don’t mind the open car, you’d better jump in with me. I’ll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner.’

  The offer was tempting, for Undine’s triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous – she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin.

  ‘Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then.’ He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: ‘You’re not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It’s all right at this hour – Ralph’s still swinging on a strap in the “Elevated”.’

  The winter twilight was deliciously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little ‘fuss’ as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter’s sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his ‘bad’ real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way – she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing
, too, to be ‘talked about’ with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for ‘nice women’. She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good.

  Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor.

  ‘What’s the matter? Isn’t everything all right?’

  His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary ‘niceness’ seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material ‘bothers’ – as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he ‘didn’t care to part’); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he’d give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: ‘Oh, hang waiting for the bill – won’t a couple of thou’ make it all right?’ in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life.

  The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down – with a nod for his ‘Everything jolly again now?’ – to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his ‘nagging’ that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs.

  ‘Mercy! It’s the boy’s birthday – I was to take him to his grandmother’s. She was to have a cake for him, and Ralph was to come up town. I knew there was something I’d forgotten!’

  XV

  IN THE Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece.

  ‘No sign of her. She’s simply forgotten.’

  Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock.

  ‘Six o’clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late.’

  Laura laughed. ‘I haven’t noticed that she follows Ralph’s movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she’d been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it’s too late for Paul to come.’

  She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled.

  ‘Put them out, please,’ she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen.

  ‘It’s all so unlucky – my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I’d even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she’d have the boy here at four. It’s not as if it had never happened before. She’s always breaking her engagements.’

  ‘She has so many that it’s inevitable some should get broken.’

  ‘Ah, if she’d only choose! Now that Ralph has had to go into business, and is kept in his office so late, it’s cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn’t dined at home for a month. Undine doesn’t seem to notice how hard he works.’

  Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. ‘No – why should she?’

  ‘Why should she? Really, Charles –!’

  ‘Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?’

  ‘She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it’s her extravagance that’s forced him into it.’ Mrs Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. ‘You talk as if you were on her side!’

  ‘Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages.’

  Mrs Fairford dropped into her armchair with a sigh. ‘If that’s what you want you must make haste! Most of them don’t last long enough to be classified.’

  ‘I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it.’

  ‘What do you call the weak point?’

  He paused. ‘The fact that the average American looks down on his wife.’

  Mrs Fairford was up with a spring. ‘If that’s where paradox lands you!’

  Bowen mildly stood his ground. ‘Well – doesn’t he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgement and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph, for instance – you say his wife’s extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that’s not what’s wrong. It’s normal for a man to work hard for a woman – what’s abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it.’

  ‘To tell Undine? She’d be bored to death if he did!’

  ‘Just so; she’d even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it’s against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man’s again – I don’t mean Ralph, I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven’t we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don’t take enough interest in them.’

  Mrs Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her.

  ‘You don’t? The American man doesn’t – the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing –?’

  ‘Yes; and the most indifferent: there’s the point. The “slaving’s” no argument against the indifference. To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they’ve ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn’t know what else to do with it.’

  ‘Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?’

  ‘Not necessarily – but it’s want of imagination to fancy it’s all he owes her. Look about you and you’ll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she’s so important to them that they make it worth her while! She’s not a parenthesis, as she is here – she’s in the very middle of the picture. I’m not implying that Ralph isn’t interested in his wife – he’s a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman’s drawing-room or in their offices? The answer’s obvious, isn’t it? The emotional centre of gravity’s not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it’s love, in our new one it’s business. In America the real crime passionnel is a “big steal” – there’s more excitement in wrecking railways than homes.’

  Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. ‘Isn’t that the key to our easy
divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we’d give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what’s the result – how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy’s with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempts to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male – the money and the motors and the clothes – and pretend to themselves and each other that that’s what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you’re going to say – it’s less and less of a pretence with them, I grant you; they’re more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there’s one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she’s paid for keeping out of some man’s way!’

  Mrs Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: ‘And is Undine one of the exceptions?’

  Her companion took the shot with a smile. ‘No – she’s a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It’s Ralph who’s the victim and the exception.’

  ‘Ah, poor Ralph!’ Mrs Fairford raised her head quickly. ‘I hear him now. I suppose,’ she added in an undertone, ‘we can’t give him your explanation for his wife’s having forgotten to come?’

  Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered.

  ‘Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles – have you been celebrating too?’ Ralph turned to his sister. ‘It’s outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren’t look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays.’ He returned Mrs Fairford’s kiss. ‘Don’t tell me the party’s over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?’

  As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell.