The Custom of the Country

by Edith Wharton

  ‘Her husband? But she’s an American – she’s divorced,’ the Duchess replied, as if she were merely stating the same fact in two different ways; and Undine stopped short with a pang of apprehension.

  The Princess came up behind her. ‘Who’s the solemn person with Mamma? Ah, that old bore of a Trézac!’ She dropped her long eye-glass with a laugh. ‘Well, she’ll be useful – she’ll stick to Mamma like a leech, and we shall get away oftener. Come, let’s go and be charming to her.’

  She approached Madame de Trézac effusively, and after an interchange of exclamations Undine heard her say: ‘You know my friend Mrs Marvell? No? How odd! Where do you manage to hide yourself, chère Madame! Undine, here’s a compatriot who hasn’t the pleasure –’

  ‘I’m such a hermit, dear Mrs Marvell – the Princess shows me what I miss,’ the Marquise de Trézac murmured, rising to give her hand to Undine, and speaking in a voice so different from that of the supercilious Miss Wincher that only her facial angle and the droop of her nose linked her to the hated vision of Potash Springs.

  Undine felt herself dancing on a flood-tide of security. For the first time the memory of Potash Springs became a thing to smile at, and with the Princess’s arm through hers she shone back triumphantly on Madame de Trézac, who seemed to have grown suddenly obsequious and insignificant, as though the waving of the Princess’s wand had stripped her of all her false advantages.

  But upstairs, in her own room, Undine’s courage fell. Madame de Trézac had been civil, effusive even, because for the moment she had been taken off her guard by finding Mrs Marvell on terms of intimacy with the Princess Estradina and her mother. But the force of facts would reassert itself. Far from continuing to see Undine through her French friends’ eyes she would probably invite them to view her compatriot through the searching lens of her own ampler information. ‘The old hypocrite – she’ll tell them everything,’ Undine murmured, wincing at the recollection of the dentist’s assistant from Deposit, and staring miserably at her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. Of what use were youth and grace and good looks, if one drop of poison distilled from the envy of a narrow-minded woman was enough to paralyse them? Of course Madame de Trézac knew and remembered, and, secure in her own impregnable position, would never rest till she had driven out the intruder.

  XXVIII

  ‘WHAT do you say to Nice tomorrow, dearest?’ the Princess suggested a few evenings later, as she followed Undine upstairs after a languid evening at bridge with the Duchess and Madame de Trézac.

  Half-way down the passage she stopped to open a door and, putting her finger to her lip, signed to Undine to enter. In the taper-lit dimness stood two small white beds, each surmounted by a crucifix and a palm-branch, and each containing a small brown sleeping child with a mop of hair and a curiously finished little face. As the Princess stood gazing on their innocent slumbers she seemed for a moment like a third little girl, scarcely bigger and browner than the others; and the smile with which she watched them was as clear as theirs.

  ‘Ah, si seulement je pouvais choisir leurs amants!’ she sighed as she turned away.

  ‘ – Nice tomorrow,’ she repeated, as she and Undine walked on to their rooms with linked arms. ‘We may as well make hay while the Trézac shines. She bores Mamma frightfully, but Mamma won’t admit it because they belong to the same oeuvres. Shall it be the eleven train, dear? We can lunch at the Royal and look in the shops – we may meet somebody amusing. Anyhow, it’s better than staying here!’

  Undine was sure the trip to Nice would be delightful. Their previous expeditions had shown her the Princess’s faculty for organizing such adventures. At Monte-Carlo, a few days before, they had run across two or three amusing but unassorted people, and the Princess, having fused them in a jolly lunch, had followed it up by a bout at baccarat, and, finally hunting down an eminent composer who had just arrived to rehearse a new production, had insisted on his asking the party to tea, and treating them to fragments of his opera.

  A few days earlier, Undine’s hope of renewing such pleasures would have been clouded by the dread of leaving Madame de Trézac alone with the Duchess. But she had no longer any fear of Madame de Trézac. She had discovered that her old rival of Potash Springs was in actual dread of her disfavour, and nervously anxious to conciliate her, and the discovery gave her such a sense of the heights she had scaled, and the security of her footing, that all her troubled past began to seem like the result of some providential ‘design’, and vague impulses of piety stirred in her as she and the Princess whirled toward Nice through the blue and gold glitter of the morning.

  They wandered about the lively streets, they gazed into the beguiling shops, the Princess tried on hats and Undine bought them, and they lunched at the Royal on all sorts of succulent dishes prepared under the head-waiter’s special supervision. But as they were savouring their ‘double’ coffee and liqueurs, and Undine was wondering what her companion would devise for the afternoon, the Princess clapped her hands together and cried out: ‘Dearest, I’d forgotten! I must desert you.’

  She explained that she’d promised the Duchess to look up a friend who was ill – a poor wretch who’d been sent to Cimiez for her lungs – and that she must rush off at once, and would be back as soon as possible – well, if not in an hour, then in two at latest. She was full of compunction, but she knew Undine would forgive her, and find something amusing to fill up the time: she advised her to go back and buy the black hat with the osprey, and try on the crêpe de Chine they’d thought so smart: for any one as good-looking as herself the woman would probably alter it for nothing; and they could meet again at the Palace Tea-Rooms at four.

  She whirled away in a cloud of explanations, and Undine, left alone, sat down on the Promenade des Anglais. She did not believe a word the Princess had said. She had seen in a flash why she was being left, and why the plan had not been divulged to her beforehand; and she quivered with resentment and humiliation. ‘That’s what she’s wanted me for … that’s why she made up to me. She’s trying it today, and after this it’ll happen regularly … she’ll drag me over here every day or two … at least she thinks she will!’

  A sincere disgust was Undine’s uppermost sensation. She was as much ashamed as Mrs Spragg might have been at finding herself used to screen a clandestine adventure.

  ‘I’ll let her see … I’ll make her understand,’ she repeated angrily; and for a moment she was half-disposed to drive to the station and take the first train back. But the sense of her precarious situation withheld her; and presently, with bitterness in her heart, she got up and began to stroll toward the shops.

  To show that she was not a dupe, she arrived at the designated meeting-place nearly an hour later than the time appointed; but when she entered the Tea-Rooms the Princess was nowhere to be seen. The rooms were crowded, and Undine was guided toward a small inner apartment where isolated couples were absorbing refreshments in an atmosphere of intimacy that made it seem incongruous to be alone. She glanced about for a face she knew, but none was visible, and she was just giving up the search when she beheld Elmer Moffatt shouldering his way through the crowd.

  The sight was so surprising that she sat gazing with unconscious fixity at the round black head and glossy reddish face which kept appearing and disappearing through the intervening jungle of aigrettes. It was long since she had either heard of Moffatt or thought about him, and now, in her loneliness and exasperation, she took comfort in the sight of his confident capable face, and felt a longing to hear his voice and unbosom her woes to him. She had half risen to attract his attention when she saw him turn back and make way for a companion, who was cautiously steering her huge feathered hat between the tea-tables. The woman was of the vulgarest type; everything about her was cheap and gaudy. But Moffatt was obviously elated: he stood aside with a flourish to usher her in, and as he followed he shot out a pink shirt-cuff with jewelled links, and gave his moustache a gallant twist. Undine felt an unreasoning irritation: s
he was vexed with him both for not being alone and for being so vulgarly accompanied. As the couple seated themselves she caught Moffatt’s glance and saw him redden to the edge of his white forehead; but he elaborately avoided her eye – he evidently wanted her to see him do it – and proceeded to minister to his companion’s wants with an air of experienced gallantry.

  The incident, trifling as it was, filled up the measure of Undine’s bitterness. She thought Moffatt pitiably ridiculous, and she hated him for showing himself in such a light at that particular moment. Her mind turned back to her own grievance, and she was just saying to herself that nothing on earth should prevent her letting the Princess know what she thought of her, when the lady in question at last appeared. She came hurriedly forward and behind her Undine perceived the figure of a slight quietly-dressed man as to whom her immediate impression was that he made every one else in the room look as common as Moffatt. An instant later the colour had flown to her face and her hand was in Raymond de Chelles’, while the Princess, murmuring: ‘Cimiez’s such a long way off; but you will forgive me?’ looked into her eyes with a smile that added: ‘See how I pay for what I get!’

  Her first glance showed Undine how glad Raymond de Chelles was to see her. Since their last meeting his admiration for her seemed not only to have increased but to have acquired a different character. Undine, at an earlier stage in her career, might not have known exactly what the difference signified; but it was as clear to her now as if the Princess had said – what her beaming eyes seemed, in fact, to convey – ‘I’m only too glad to do my cousin the same kind of turn you’re doing me.’

  But Undine’s increased experience, if it had made her more vigilant, had also given her a clearer measure of her power. She saw at once that Chelles, in seeking to meet her again, was not in quest of a mere passing adventure. He was evidently deeply drawn to her, and her present situation, if it made it natural to regard her as more accessible, had not altered the nature of his feeling. She saw and weighed all this in the first five minutes during which, over tea and muffins, the Princess descanted on her luck in happening to run across her cousin, and Chelles, his enchanted eyes on Undine, expressed his sense of his good fortune. He was staying, it appeared, with friends at Beaulieu, and had run over to Nice that afternoon by the merest chance; he added that, having just learned of his aunt’s presence in the neighbourhood, he had already planned to present his homage to her.

  ‘Oh, don’t come to us – we’re too dull!’ the Princess exclaimed. ‘Let us run over occasionally and call on you: we’re dying for a pretext, aren’t we?’ she added, smiling at Undine.

  The latter smiled back vaguely, and looked across the room. Moffatt, looking flushed and foolish, was just pushing back his chair. To carry off his embarrassment he put on an additional touch of importance; and as he swaggered out behind his companion, Undine said to herself with a shiver: ‘If he’d been alone they would have found me taking tea with him.’

  Undine, during the ensuing weeks, returned several times to Nice with the Princess; but, to the latter’s surprise, she absolutely refused to have Raymond de Chelles included in their luncheon-parties, or even apprised in advance of their expeditions.

  The Princess, always impatient of unnecessary dissimulation, had not attempted to keep up the feint of the interesting invalid at Cimiez. She confessed to Undine that she was drawn to Nice by the presence there of the person without whom, for the moment, she found life intolerable, and whom she could not well receive under the same roof with her little girls and her mother. She appealed to Undine’s sisterly heart to feel for her in her difficulty, and implied that – as her conduct had already proved – she would always be ready to render her friend a like service.

  It was at this point that Undine checked her by a decided word. ‘I understand your position, and I’m very sorry for you, of course,’ she began (the Princess stared at the ‘sorry’). ‘Your secret’s perfectly safe with me, and I’ll do anything I can for you … but if I go to Nice with you again you must promise not to ask your cousin to meet us.’

  The Princess’s face expressed the most genuine astonishment. ‘Oh, my dear, do forgive me if I’ve been stupid! He admires you so tremendously; and I thought –’

  ‘You’ll do as I ask, please – won’t you?’ Undine went on, ignoring the interruption and looking straight at her under level brows; and the Princess, with a shrug, merely murmured: ‘What a pity! I fancied you liked him.’

  XXIX

  THE EARLY spring found Undine once more in Paris.

  She had every reason to be satisfied with the result of the course she had pursued since she had pronounced her ultimatum on the subject of Raymond de Chelles. She had continued to remain on the best of terms with the Princess, to rise in the estimation of the old Duchess, and to measure the rapidity of her ascent in the upward gaze of Madame de Trézac; and she had given Chelles to understand that, if he wished to renew their acquaintance, he must do so in the shelter of his venerable aunt’s protection.

  To the Princess she was careful to make her attitude equally clear. ‘I like your cousin very much – he’s delightful, and if I’m in Paris this spring I hope I shall see a great deal of him. But I know how easy it is for a woman in my position to get talked about – and I have my little boy to consider.’

  Nevertheless, whenever Chelles came over from Beaulieu to spend a day with his aunt and cousin – an excursion he not infrequently repeated – Undine was at no pains to conceal her pleasure. Nor was there anything calculated in her attitude. Chelles seemed to her more charming than ever, and the warmth of his wooing was in flattering contrast to the cool reserve of his manners. At last she felt herself alive and young again, and it became a joy to look in her glass and to try on her new hats and dresses …

  The only menace ahead was the usual one of the want of money. While she had travelled with her parents she had been at relatively small expense, and since their return to America Mr Spragg had sent her allowance regularly; yet almost all the money she had received for the pearls was already gone, and she knew her Paris season would be far more expensive than the quiet weeks on the Riviera.

  Meanwhile the sense of reviving popularity, and the charm of Chelles’ devotion, had almost effaced the ugly memories of failure, and refurbished that image of herself in other minds which was her only notion of self-seeing. Under the guidance of Madame de Trézac she had found a prettily furnished apartment in a not too inaccessible quarter, and in its light bright drawing-room she sat one June afternoon listening, with all the forbearance of which she was capable, to the counsels of her newly acquired guide.

  ‘Everything but marriage –’ Madame de Trézac was repeating, her long head slightly tilted, her features wearing the rapt look of an adept reciting a hallowed formula.

  Raymond de Chelles had not been mentioned by either of the ladies, and the former Miss Wincher was merely imparting to her young friend one of the fundamental dogmas of her social creed; but Undine was conscious that the air between them vibrated with an unspoken name. She made no immediate answer, but her glance, passing by Madame de Trézac’s dull countenance, sought her own reflection in the mirror behind her visitor’s chair. A beam of spring sunlight touched the living masses of her hair and made the face beneath as radiant as a girl’s. Undine smiled faintly at the promise her own eyes gave her, and then turned them back to her friend. ‘What can such women know about anything?’ she thought compassionately.

  ‘There’s everything against it,’ Madame de Trézac continued in a tone of patient exposition. She seemed to be doing her best to make the matter clear. ‘In the first place, between people in society a religious marriage is necessary; and, since the Church doesn’t recognize divorce, that’s obviously out of the question. In France, a man of position who goes through the form of civil marriage with a divorced woman is simply ruining himself and her. They might much better – from her point of view as well as his – be “friends”, as it’s called over here: su
ch arrangements are understood and allowed for. But when a Frenchman marries he wants to marry as his people always have. He knows there are traditions he can’t fight against and in his heart he’s glad there are.’

  ‘Oh, I know: they’ve so much religious feeling. I admire that in them: their religion’s so beautiful.’ Undine looked thoughtfully at her visitor. ‘I suppose even money – a great deal of money wouldn’t make the least bit of difference?’

  ‘None whatever, except to make matters worse,’ Madame de Trézac decisively rejoined. She returned Undine’s look with something of Miss Wincher’s contemptuous authority. ‘But,’ she added, softening to a smile, ‘between ourselves – I can say it, since we’re neither of us children – a woman with tact, who’s not in a position to remarry, will find society extremely indulgent … provided, of course, she keeps up appearances …’

  Undine turned to her with the frown of a startled Diana. ‘We don’t look at things that way out at Apex,’ she said coldly; and the blood rose in Madame de Trézac’s sallow cheek.

  ‘Oh, my dear, it’s so refreshing to hear you talk like that! Personally, of course, I’ve never quite got used to the French view –’

  ‘I hope no American woman ever does,’ said Undine.

  She had been in Paris for about two months when this conversation took place, and in spite of her reviving self-confidence she was beginning to recognize the strength of the forces opposed to her. It had taken a long time to convince her that even money could not prevail against them; and, in the intervals of expressing her admiration for the Catholic creed, she now had violent reactions of militant Protestantism, during which she talked of the tyranny of Rome and recalled school stories of immoral Popes and persecuting Jesuits.