The Age of Innocence--Edith Wharton [43]
Mrs. Archer paled.
‘‘Ah—a charming woman. I have just been to see her,’’ said Mr. van der Luyden, complacency restored to his brow. He sank into the chair, laid his hat and gloves on the floor beside him in the old-fashioned way, and went on: ‘‘She has a real gift for arranging flowers. I had sent her a few carnations from Skuytercliff, and I was astonished. Instead of massing them in big bunches as our head gardener does, she had scattered them about loosely, here and there . . . I can’t say how. The duke had told me. He said: ‘Go and see how cleverly she’s arranged her drawing room.’ And she has. I should really like to take Louisa to see her, if the neighbourhood were not so—unpleasant.’’
A dead silence greeted this unusual flow of words from Mr. van der Luyden. Mrs. Archer drew her embroidery out of the basket into which she had nervously tumbled it, and Newland, leaning against the chimneyplace and twisting a hummingbird feather screen in his hand, saw Janey’s gaping countenance lit up by the coming of the second lamp.
‘‘The fact is,’’ Mr. van der Luyden continued, stroking his long grey leg with a bloodless hand weighed down by the patroon’s great signet ring, ‘‘the fact is, I dropped in to thank her for the very pretty note she wrote me about my flowers; and also—but this is between ourselves, of course—to give her a friendly warning about allowing the duke to carry her off to parties with him. I don’t know if you’ve heard—’’
Mrs. Archer produced an indulgent smile. ‘‘Has the duke been carrying her off to parties?’’
‘‘You know what these English grandees are. They’re all alike. Louisa and I are very fond of our cousin—but it’s hopeless to expect people who are accustomed to the European courts to trouble themselves about our little republican distinctions. The duke goes where he’s amused.’’ Mr. van der Luyden paused, but no one spoke. ‘‘Yes—it seems he took her with him last night to Mrs. Lemuel Struthers’s. Sillerton Jackson has just been to us with the foolish story, and Louisa was rather troubled. So I thought the shortest way was to go straight to Countess Olenska and explain—by the merest hint, you know—how we feel in New York about certain things. I felt I might, without indelicacy, because the evening she dined with us she rather suggested . . . rather let me see that she would be grateful for guidance. And she was.’’
Mr. van der Luyden looked about the room with what would have been self-satisfaction on features less purged of the vulgar passions. On his face it became a mild benevolence which Mrs. Archer’s countenance dutifully reflected.
‘‘How kind you both are, dear Henry—always! Newland will particularly appreciate what you have done because of dear May and his new relations.’’
She shot an admonitory glance at her son, who said: ‘‘Immensely, sir. But I was sure you’d like Madame Olenska.’’
Mr. van der Luyden looked at him with extreme gentleness. ‘‘I never ask to my house, my dear Newland,’’ he said, ‘‘anyone whom I do not like. And so I have just told Sillerton Jackson.’’ With a glance at the clock he rose and added: ‘‘But Louisa will be waiting. We are dining early, to take the duke to the opera.’’
After the portières had solemnly closed behind their visitor a silence fell upon the Archer family.
‘‘Gracious—how romantic!’’ at last broke explosively from Janey. No one knew exactly what inspired her elliptic comments, and her relations had long since given up trying to interpret them.
Mrs. Archer shook her head with a sigh. ‘‘Provided it all turns out for the best,’’ she said, in the tone of one who knows how surely it will not. ‘‘Newland, you must stay and see Sillerton Jackson when he comes this evening: I really shan’t know what to say to him.’’
‘‘Poor Mother! But he won’t come—’’ her son laughed, stooping to kiss away her frown.
11
SOME TWO weeks later, Newland Archer, sitting in abstracted idleness in his private compartment of the office of Letterblair, Lamson and Low, attorneys at law, was summoned by the head of the firm.
Old Mr. Letterblair, the accredited legal adviser of