As he entered the box his eyes met Miss Welland’s, and he saw that she had instantly understood his motive, though the family dignity which both considered so high a virtue would not permit her to tell him so. The persons of their world lived in an atmosphere of faint implications and pale delicacies, and the fact that he and she understood each other without a word seemed to the young man to bring them nearer than any explanation would have done. Her eyes said: “You see why Mamma brought me,” and his answered: “I would not for the world have had you stay away.”
When he saw May’s singular look, Newland was overcome with the desire to touch the flesh of his soon to be bride. His mind began to wander, and he imagined that only the two of them were present…
He held out his hand to her. She placed her own hand, slender but strong, in his. He lifted her from the chair and drew her near. They stared longingly into one another’s eyes, hers unsure, his filled with certainty.
“Newland,” she whispered, her voice quavering.
He hushed her and took her face in his hands. He drew near her and stopped before touching his lips to her soft skin. Her breath hastened and her body fell limp against the weight of his arms. He braced her body and, hesitating no longer, pressed his lips to hers and took what belonged to him.
He would have her, all of her. He would ravish her, he would complete her. He slid his tongue between her satiny lips and found her velvety tongue, which was waiting to discover the unknown. She sighed at his touch and allowed him to take the lead. He rubbed the tip of his tongue against hers, slowly at first. But it wasn’t long before she placed her arms around his neck and followed with great enthusiasm.
When the kiss ended and they drew away from each other, she sighed. “Oh, Newland, my darling.”
He did not give her a chance to speak. Instead, he closed the gap and kissed her some more. Their lips touched and withdrew several times before he slid his mouth away from hers and then glided his lips across her cheeks and down her neck. He almost felt the patter of her heart ripple against her décolletage. He slid his mouth lower to her bosom, where he felt her heart beating through her chest.
“Newland, please, I don’t think … ” Her voice faded against the growing storm of his desire.
He eased down the tulle tucker of her dress, which was fastened with only a single gardenia. Then he lowered the dress to reveal the creamy complexion of her bare breasts. Her nipples protruded like tender cherries waiting for the first taste. He slid his fingers across the supple texture of her delicate skin and circled the tips of her nipples until the flesh stood on end.
She released a pleasurable sigh, and her head lolled in ecstasy.
He lowered his mouth to the blossom and began consuming her flesh with his tongue. He circled one of the tips, while he delicately thrummed the other nipple between the pads of his fingers.
“I want you,” he said.
She lifted her head as though awakening from a deep sleep. “Oh, Newland, my love.”
He rose to his feet, took a step back, and sat down in a chair. When she stood in front of him without moving, he grasped her waist and pulled her near. As if frightened by his gaze, she quickly drew her hands to her exposed bosom and looked down into his eyes. Her lips parted, as if trying to form words.
“Don’t speak,” he said. He took her hands in his, so that her breasts were once again exposed to his eyes.
“But I’m a …”
“Kiss me,” he said and quieted her by covering her lips with his. When he pulled away from her, he grasped her full breasts and began to massage.
Her body began to sway with desire. “Oh, Newland,” she whispered.
She leaned forward and touched her lips to his. This time it was she who found his tongue and kissed him with fiery passion. But when she broke the kiss and opened her eyes, she once again had a look of apprehension.
“Close your eyes,” he said at once. And when she did as he asked, he released her breasts and ran his hands along the length of her form, feeling the curves of her body. As soon as he reached her ankles, he slipped his hands underneath the dress and grasped her ankles. Then he raised his hands along the outer line of her legs to the soft, firm flesh of her bottom and squeezed. She moaned, and he slowly returned his hands down the length of her legs to her ankles. He brought both hands to one of her legs and slowly raised them again, one inside her leg, the other outside. When he passed her knee, he moved the other hand toward her inner thigh. Her legs quivered, but he would not yield.
“Place your hands on my shoulders,” he said.
“Oh, Newland, we really shouldn’t … ” But any protest quickly waned and she did as he asked.
He slid his hands higher up her legs, feeling her skin ripple as he neared her feminine delta. Then he touched the fabric of her undergarment and slid his fingers around the edge near her sheath, urging her to part her legs. When she opened herself to him, he slipped a finger through the lace fabric and found her moist petals awaiting his deeper touch.
“Newland … Newland,” she said, her voice catching as he slipped more fingers inside the lace garment.
Slowly and ever so gently, he began sliding his fingers back and forth through her delicate intimate folds. “Do I please you?” he whispered as he looked into her pristine, yet flushed face.
Her eyelids fluttered, although she kept them closed. “Oh, Newland,” she said, her voice hoarse, her words almost unintelligible. “Yes,” she hissed. “My dearest.” Then she began to move her body in rhythm with his loving touch.
He withdrew his fingers and lowered the elegant lace undergarment. Then he raised her dress and placed her skirts in one of her hands to hold them up, while leaving her other hand on his shoulder in case she swooned. Newland Archer knew that May Welland was his to do with as he pleased. The thought sent a hot sensation shooting through his loins. His member throbbed. His head swelled with euphoria. But he would restrain himself. Soon enough, the pleasure would be his. And soon enough, she would learn the many ways of pleasing him. But tonight, he would act solely for her pleasure.
He studied her form, from her ankles to the shapely curves of her muscular thighs, and up to the curls that masked her feminine form. Her pureness stemmed not only from her fair complexion, but also from her sweet naivety. He parted her feminine folds to reveal her inner petals and lovely pink pearl. Then he began to massage that precious jewel of hers, round and round, sliding his fingers from the firmness of it to the richness of her passion. She sighed. She moved without inhibition. She let him have his way because his experienced hand energized her, excited her. And after she was fully aroused, he slipped a finger inside the entrance to her sheath—to be sure, she was chaste.
He hesitated before sliding in deeper. Perhaps he should wait. Then he slid his finger back to her pearl. And with the other hand, he grasped her breast, where he found the tip of her nipple and squeezed. He played without boundaries, without strictures, until she was completely undone.
“Newland, what is happening?” she asked, speaking at once, her breath catching. “I’m … I …”
And when he whispered his reassurances, she allowed herself to crest, crying his name aloud …
Indeed, Newland Archer and May Welland understood each other without words. When he gazed upon his betrothed, he knew this must be true. With the comfort of that thought, he dismissed his fantasies of what it would be like for the two of them to be alone, completely free, and returned his attention to the matter at hand.
“You know my niece Countess Olenska?” Mrs. Welland enquired as she shook hands with her future son-in-law. Archer bowed without extending his hand, as was the custom on being introduced to a lady; and Ellen Olenska bent her head slightly, keeping her own pale-gloved hands clasped on her huge fan of eagle feathers. Having greeted Mrs. Lovell Mingott, a large blonde lady in creaking satin, he sat down beside his betrothed, and said in a low tone: “I hope you’ve told Madame Olenska that we’re engaged? I want everybody to k
now—I want you to let me announce it this evening at the ball.”
Miss Welland’s face grew rosy as the dawn, and she looked at him with radiant eyes. “If you can persuade Mamma,” she said; “but why should we change what is already settled?” He made no answer but that which his eyes returned, and she added, still more confidently smiling: “Tell my cousin yourself: I give you leave. She says she used to play with you when you were children.”
She made way for him by pushing back her chair, and promptly, and a little ostentatiously, with the desire that the whole house should see what he was doing, Archer seated himself at the Countess Olenska’s side.
“We DID use to play together, didn’t we?” she asked, turning her grave eyes to his. “You were a horrid boy, and kissed me once behind a door; but it was your cousin Vandie Newland, who never looked at me, that I was in love with.” Her glance swept the horseshoe curve of boxes. “Ah, how this brings it all back to me—I see everybody here in knickerbockers and pantalettes,” she said, with her trailing slightly foreign accent, her eyes returning to his face.
Agreeable as their expression was, the young man was shocked that they should reflect so unseemly a picture of the august tribunal before which, at that very moment, her case was being tried. Nothing could be in worse taste than misplaced flippancy; and he answered somewhat stiffly: “Yes, you have been away a very long time.”
“Oh, centuries and centuries; so long,” she said, “that I’m sure I’m dead and buried, and this dear old place is heaven;” which, for reasons he could not define, struck Newland Archer as an even more disrespectful way of describing New York society.
Chapter 3
It invariably happened in the same way.
Mrs. Julius Beaufort, on the night of her annual ball, never failed to appear at the Opera; indeed, she always gave her ball on an Opera night in order to emphasise her complete superiority to household cares, and her possession of a staff of servants competent to organise every detail of the entertainment in her absence.
The Beauforts’ house was one of the few in New York that possessed a ballroom (it antedated even Mrs. Manson Mingott’s and the Headly Chiverses’); and at a time when it was beginning to be thought “provincial” to put a “crash” over the drawing-room floor and move the furniture upstairs, the possession of a ballroom that was used for no other purpose, and left for three-hundred-and-sixty-four days of the year to shuttered darkness, with its gilt chairs stacked in a corner and its chandelier in a bag; this undoubted superiority was felt to compensate for whatever was regrettable in the Beaufort past.
Mrs. Archer, who was fond of coining her social philosophy into axioms, had once said: “We all have our pet common people—” and though the phrase was a daring one, its truth was secretly admitted in many an exclusive bosom. But the Beauforts were not exactly common; some people said they were even worse. Mrs. Beaufort belonged indeed to one of America’s most honoured families; she had been the lovely Regina Dallas (of the South Carolina branch), a penniless beauty introduced to New York society by her cousin, the imprudent Medora Manson, who was always doing the wrong thing from the right motive. When one was related to the Mansons and the Rushworths one had a “droit de cite” (as Mr. Sillerton Jackson, who had frequented the Tuileries, called it) in New York society; but did one not forfeit it in marrying Julius Beaufort?
The question was: who was Beaufort? He passed for an Englishman, was agreeable, handsome, ill-tempered, hospitable and witty. He had come to America with letters of recommendation from old Mrs. Manson Mingott’s English son-in-law, the banker, and had speedily made himself an important position in the world of affairs; but his habits were dissipated, his tongue was bitter, his antecedents were mysterious; and when Medora Manson announced her cousin’s engagement to him it was felt to be one more act of folly in poor Medora’s long record of imprudences.
But folly is as often justified of her children as wisdom, and two years after young Mrs. Beaufort’s marriage it was admitted that she had the most distinguished house in New York. No one knew exactly how the miracle was accomplished. She was indolent, passive, the caustic even called her dull; but dressed like an idol, hung with pearls, growing younger and blonder and more beautiful each year, she throned in Mr. Beaufort’s heavy brownstone palace, and drew all the world there without lifting her jewelled little finger. The knowing people said it was Beaufort himself who trained the servants, taught the chef new dishes, told the gardeners what hot-house flowers to grow for the dinner-table and the drawing-rooms, selected the guests, brewed the after-dinner punch and dictated the little notes his wife wrote to her friends. If he did, these domestic activities were privately performed, and he presented to the world the appearance of a careless and hospitable millionaire strolling into his own drawing-room with the detachment of an invited guest, and saying: “My wife’s gloxinias are a marvel, aren’t they? I believe she gets them out from Kew.”
Mr. Beaufort’s secret, people were agreed, was the way he carried things off. It was all very well to whisper that he had been “helped” to leave England by the international banking-house in which he had been employed; he carried off that rumour as easily as the rest—though New York’s business conscience was no less sensitive than its moral standard—he carried everything before him, and all New York into his drawing-rooms, and for over twenty years now people had said they were “going to the Beauforts’” with the same tone of security as if they had said they were going to Mrs. Manson Mingott’s, and with the added satisfaction of knowing they would get hot canvasback ducks and vintage wines, instead of tepid Veuve Clicquot without a year and warmed-up croquettes from Philadelphia.
Mrs. Beaufort, then, had as usual appeared in her box just before the Jewel Song; and when, again as usual, she rose at the end of the third act, drew her opera cloak about her lovely shoulders, and disappeared, New York knew that meant that half an hour later the ball would begin.
The Beaufort house was one that New Yorkers were proud to show to foreigners, especially on the night of the annual ball. The Beauforts had been among the first people in New York to own their own red velvet carpet and have it rolled down the steps by their own footmen, under their own awning, instead of hiring it with the supper and the ballroom chairs. They had also inaugurated the custom of letting the ladies take their cloaks off in the hall, instead of shuffling up to the hostess’s bedroom and recurling their hair with the aid of the gas-burner; Beaufort was understood to have said that he supposed all his wife’s friends had maids who saw to it that they were properly coiffees when they left home.
Then the house had been boldly planned with a ballroom, so that, instead of squeezing through a narrow passage to get to it (as at the Chiverses’) one marched solemnly down a vista of enfiladed drawing-rooms (the sea-green, the crimson and the bouton d’or), seeing from afar the many-candled lustres reflected in the polished parquetry, and beyond that the depths of a conservatory where camellias and tree-ferns arched their costly foliage over seats of black and gold bamboo.
Newland Archer, as became a young man of his position, strolled in somewhat late. He had left his overcoat with the silk-stockinged footmen (the stockings were one of Beaufort’s few fatuities), had dawdled a while in the library hung with Spanish leather and furnished with Buhl and malachite, where a few men were chatting and putting on their dancing-gloves, and had finally joined the line of guests whom Mrs. Beaufort was receiving on the threshold of the crimson drawing-room.
Archer was distinctly nervous. He had not gone back to his club after the Opera (as the young bloods usually did), but, the night being fine, had walked for some distance up Fifth Avenue before turning back in the direction of the Beauforts’ house. He was definitely afraid that the Mingotts might be going too far; that, in fact, they might have Granny Mingott’s orders to bring the Countess Olenska to the ball.
From the tone of the club box he had perceived how grave a mistake that would be; and, though he was more than ever determined t
o “see the thing through,” he felt less chivalrously eager to champion his betrothed’s cousin than before their brief talk at the Opera.
Wandering on to the bouton d’or drawing-room (where Beaufort had had the audacity to hang “Love Victorious,” the much-discussed nude of Bouguereau) Archer found Mrs. Welland and her daughter standing near the ballroom door. Couples were already gliding over the floor beyond: the light of the wax candles fell on revolving tulle skirts, on girlish heads wreathed with modest blossoms, on the dashing aigrettes and ornaments of the young married women’s coiffures, and on the glitter of highly glazed shirt-fronts and fresh glace gloves.
Miss Welland, evidently about to join the dancers, hung on the threshold, her lilies-of-the-valley in her hand (she carried no other bouquet), her face a little pale, her eyes burning with a candid excitement. A group of young men and girls were gathered about her, and there was much hand-clasping, laughing and pleasantry on which Mrs. Welland, standing slightly apart, shed the beam of a qualified approval. It was evident that Miss Welland was in the act of announcing her engagement, while her mother affected the air of parental reluctance considered suitable to the occasion.
Archer paused a moment. It was at his express wish that the announcement had been made, and yet it was not thus that he would have wished to have his happiness known. To proclaim it in the heat and noise of a crowded ballroom was to rob it of the fine bloom of privacy which should belong to things nearest the heart. His joy was so deep that this blurring of the surface left its essence untouched; but he would have liked to keep the surface pure too. It was something of a satisfaction to find that May Welland shared this feeling. Her eyes fled to his beseechingly, and their look said: “Remember, we’re doing this because it’s right.”
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