The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton [red novels .txt] 📗

caught it already. I AM dead—I’ve been dead for

months and months.”

 

And suddenly the play of the word flashed up a wild

suggestion. What if it were SHE who was dead! If she

were going to die—to die soon—and leave him free!

The sensation of standing there, in that warm familiar

room, and looking at her, and wishing her dead, was

so strange, so fascinating and overmastering, that its

enormity did not immediately strike him. He simply

felt that chance had given him a new possibility to

which his sick soul might cling. Yes, May might die—

people did: young people, healthy people like herself:

she might die, and set him suddenly free.

 

She glanced up, and he saw by her widening eyes

that there must be something strange in his own.

 

“Newland! Are you ill?”

 

He shook his head and turned toward his armchair.

She bent over her work-frame, and as he passed he laid

his hand on her hair. “Poor May!” he said.

 

“Poor? Why poor?” she echoed with a strained laugh.

 

“Because I shall never be able to open a window

without worrying you,” he rejoined, laughing also.

 

For a moment she was silent; then she said very low,

her head bowed over her work: “I shall never worry if

you’re happy.”

 

“Ah, my dear; and I shall never be happy unless I

can open the windows!”

 

“In THIS weather?” she remonstrated; and with a sigh

he buried his head in his book.

 

Six or seven days passed. Archer heard nothing from

Madame Olenska, and became aware that her name

would not be mentioned in his presence by any member

of the family. He did not try to see her; to do so

while she was at old Catherine’s guarded bedside would

have been almost impossible. In the uncertainty of the

situation he let himself drift, conscious, somewhere

below the surface of his thoughts, of a resolve which

had come to him when he had leaned out from his

library window into the icy night. The strength of that

resolve made it easy to wait and make no sign.

 

Then one day May told him that Mrs. Manson

Mingott had asked to see him. There was nothing

surprising in the request, for the old lady was steadily

recovering, and she had always openly declared that

she preferred Archer to any of her other grandsons-in-law. May gave the message with evident pleasure: she

was proud of old Catherine’s appreciation of her

husband.

 

There was a moment’s pause, and then Archer felt it

incumbent on him to say: “All right. Shall we go

together this afternoon?”

 

His wife’s face brightened, but she instantly answered:

“Oh, you’d much better go alone. It bores Granny to

see the same people too often.”

 

Archer’s heart was beating violently when he rang

old Mrs. Mingott’s bell. He had wanted above all

things to go alone, for he felt sure the visit would give

him the chance of saying a word in private to the

Countess Olenska. He had determined to wait till the

chance presented itself naturally; and here it was, and

here he was on the doorstep. Behind the door, behind

the curtains of the yellow damask room next to the

hall, she was surely awaiting him; in another moment

he should see her, and be able to speak to her before

she led him to the sick-room.

 

He wanted only to put one question: after that his

course would be clear. What he wished to ask was

simply the date of her return to Washington; and that

question she could hardly refuse to answer.

 

But in the yellow sitting-room it was the mulatto

maid who waited. Her white teeth shining like a

keyboard, she pushed back the sliding doors and ushered

him into old Catherine’s presence.

 

The old woman sat in a vast throne-like armchair

near her bed. Beside her was a mahogany stand bearing

a cast bronze lamp with an engraved globe, over which

a green paper shade had been balanced. There was not

a book or a newspaper in reach, nor any evidence of

feminine employment: conversation had always been

Mrs. Mingott’s sole pursuit, and she would have scorned

to feign an interest in fancywork.

 

Archer saw no trace of the slight distortion left by

her stroke. She merely looked paler, with darker shadows

in the folds and recesses of her obesity; and, in the

fluted mob-cap tied by a starched bow between her

first two chins, and the muslin kerchief crossed over

her billowing purple dressing-gown, she seemed like

some shrewd and kindly ancestress of her own who

might have yielded too freely to the pleasures of the

table.

 

She held out one of the little hands that nestled in a

hollow of her huge lap like pet animals, and called to

the maid: “Don’t let in any one else. If my daughters

call, say I’m asleep.”

 

The maid disappeared, and the old lady turned to

her grandson.

 

“My dear, am I perfectly hideous?” she asked gaily,

launching out one hand in search of the folds of muslin

on her inaccessible bosom. “My daughters tell me it

doesn’t matter at my age—as if hideousness didn’t matter

all the more the harder it gets to conceal!”

 

“My dear, you’re handsomer than ever!” Archer

rejoined in the same tone; and she threw back her head

and laughed.

 

“Ah, but not as handsome as Ellen!” she jerked out,

twinkling at him maliciously; and before he could answer

she added: “Was she so awfully handsome the

day you drove her up from the ferry?”

 

He laughed, and she continued: “Was it because you

told her so that she had to put you out on the way? In

my youth young men didn’t desert pretty women unless

they were made to!” She gave another chuckle, and

interrupted it to say almost querulously: “It’s a pity she

didn’t marry you; I always told her so. It would have

spared me all this worry. But who ever thought of

sparing their grandmother worry?”

 

Archer wondered if her illness had blurred her faculties;

but suddenly she broke out: “Well, it’s settled,

anyhow: she’s going to stay with me, whatever the rest

of the family say! She hadn’t been here five minutes

before I’d have gone down on my knees to keep her—if

only, for the last twenty years, I’d been able to see

where the floor was!”

 

Archer listened in silence, and she went on: “They’d

talked me over, as no doubt you know: persuaded me,

Lovell, and Letterblair, and Augusta Welland, and all

the rest of them, that I must hold out and cut off her

allowance, till she was made to see that it was her duty

to go back to Olenski. They thought they’d convinced

me when the secretary, or whatever he was, came out

with the last proposals: handsome proposals I confess

they were. After all, marriage is marriage, and money’s

money—both useful things in their way … and I didn’t

know what to answer—” She broke off and drew a

long breath, as if speaking had become an effort. “But

the minute I laid eyes on her, I said: `You sweet bird,

you! Shut you up in that cage again? Never!’ And now

it’s settled that she’s to stay here and nurse her Granny

as long as there’s a Granny to nurse. It’s not a gay

prospect, but she doesn’t mind; and of course I’ve told

Letterblair that she’s to be given her proper allowance.”

 

The young man heard her with veins aglow; but in

his confusion of mind he hardly knew whether her

news brought joy or pain. He had so definitely decided

on the course he meant to pursue that for the moment

he could not readjust his thoughts. But gradually there

stole over him the delicious sense of difficulties

deferred and opportunities miraculously provided. If

Ellen had consented to come and live with her grandmother

it must surely be because she had recognised the

impossibility of giving him up. This was her answer to his

final appeal of the other day: if she would not take the

extreme step he had urged, she had at last yielded to

half-measures. He sank back into the thought with the

involuntary relief of a man who has been ready to risk

everything, and suddenly tastes the dangerous sweetness

of security.

 

“She couldn’t have gone back—it was impossible!”

he exclaimed.

 

“Ah, my dear, I always knew you were on her side;

and that’s why I sent for you today, and why I said to

your pretty wife, when she proposed to come with you:

`No, my dear, I’m pining to see Newland, and I don’t

want anybody to share our transports.’ For you see, my

dear—” she drew her head back as far as its tethering

chins permitted, and looked him full in the eyes—“you

see, we shall have a fight yet. The family don’t want

her here, and they’ll say it’s because I’ve been ill,

because I’m a weak old woman, that she’s persuaded me.

I’m not well enough yet to fight them one by one, and

you’ve got to do it for me.”

 

“I?” he stammered.

 

“You. Why not?” she jerked back at him, her round

eyes suddenly as sharp as pen-knives. Her hand fluttered

from its chair-arm and lit on his with a clutch of

little pale nails like bird-claws. “Why not?” she

searchingly repeated.

 

Archer, under the exposure of her gaze, had recovered

his self-possession.

 

“Oh, I don’t count—I’m too insignificant.”

 

“Well, you’re Letterblair’s partner, ain’t you? You’ve

got to get at them through Letterblair. Unless you’ve

got a reason,” she insisted.

 

“Oh, my dear, I back you to hold your own against

them all without my help; but you shall have it if you

need it,” he reassured her.

 

“Then we’re safe!” she sighed; and smiling on him

with all her ancient cunning she added, as she settled

her head among the cushions: “I always knew you’d

back us up, because they never quote you when they

talk about its being her duty to go home.”

 

He winced a little at her terrifying perspicacity, and

longed to ask: “And May—do they quote her?” But he

judged it safer to turn the question.

 

“And Madame Olenska? When am I to see her?” he

said.

 

The old lady chuckled, crumpled her lids, and went

through the pantomime of archness. “Not today. One

at a time, please. Madame Olenska’s gone out.”

 

He flushed with disappointment, and she went on:

“She’s gone out, my child: gone in my carriage to see

Regina Beaufort.”

 

She paused for this announcement to produce its

effect. “That’s what she’s reduced me to already. The

day after she got here she put on her best bonnet, and

told me, as cool as a cucumber, that she was going to

call on Regina Beaufort. `I don’t know her; who is

she?’ says I. `She’s your grand-niece, and a most

unhappy woman,’ she says. `She’s the wife of a scoundrel,’

I answered. `Well,’ she says, `and so am I, and yet

all my family want me to go back to him.’ Well, that

floored me, and I let her go; and finally one day she

said it was raining too hard to go out on foot, and she

wanted me to lend her my carriage. `What for?’ I asked

her; and she said: `To go and see cousin Regina—COUSIN!

Now, my dear, I looked out of the window, and saw it

wasn’t raining a drop; but I understood her, and I let

her have the carriage… . After all, Regina’s a brave

woman, and so is she; and I’ve always liked courage

above everything.”

 

Archer