“If things go on at this pace,” Lefferts thundered, looking like a young prophet dressed by Poole, and who had not yet been stoned, “we shall see our children fighting for invitations to swindlers’ houses, and marrying Beaufort’s bastards.”
“Oh, I say—draw it mild!” Reggie Chivers and young Newland protested, while Mr. Selfridge Merry looked genuinely alarmed, and an expression of pain and disgust settled on Mr. van der Luyden’s sensitive face.
“Has he got any?” cried Mr. Sillerton Jackson, pricking up his ears; and while Lefferts tried to turn the question with a laugh, the old gentleman twittered into Archer’s ear: “Queer, those fellows who are always wanting to set things right. The people who have the worst cooks are always telling you they’re poisoned when they dine out. But I hear there are pressing reasons for our friend Lawrence’s diatribe:—typewriter this time, I understand… .”
The talk swept past Archer like some senseless river running and running because it did not know enough to stop. He saw, on the faces about him, expressions of interest, amusement and even mirth. He listened to the younger men’s laughter, and to the praise of the Archer Madeira, which Mr. van der Luyden and Mr. Merry were thoughtfully celebrating. Through it all he was dimly aware of a general attitude of friendliness toward himself, as if the guard of the prisoner he felt himself to be were trying to soften his captivity; and the perception increased his passionate determination to be free.
In the drawing-room, where they presently joined the ladies, he met May’s triumphant eyes, and read in them the conviction that everything had “gone off” beautifully. She rose from Madame Olenska’s side, and immediately Mrs. van der Luyden beckoned the latter to a seat on the gilt sofa where she throned. Mrs. Selfridge Merry bore across the room to join them, and it became clear to Archer that here also a conspiracy of rehabilitation and obliteration was going on. The silent organisation which held his little world together was determined to put itself on record as never for a moment having questioned the propriety of Madame Olenska’s conduct, or the completeness of Archer’s domestic felicity. All these amiable and inexorable persons were resolutely engaged in pretending to each other that they had never heard of, suspected, or even conceived possible, the least hint to the contrary; and from this tissue of elaborate mutual dissimulation Archer once more disengaged the fact that New York believed him to be Madame Olenska’s lover. He caught the glitter of victory in his wife’s eyes, and for the first time understood that she shared the belief. The discovery roused a laughter of inner devils that reverberated through all his efforts to discuss the Martha Washington ball with Mrs. Reggie Chivers and little Mrs. Newland; and so the evening swept on, running and running like a senseless river that did not know how to stop.
At length he saw that Madame Olenska had risen and was saying goodbye. He understood that in a moment she would be gone, and tried to remember what he had said to her at dinner; but he could not recall a single word they had exchanged.
She went up to May, the rest of the company making a circle about her as she advanced. The two young women clasped hands; then May bent forward and kissed her cousin.
“Certainly our hostess is much the handsomer of the two,” Archer heard Reggie Chivers say in an undertone to young Mrs. Newland; and he remembered Beaufort’s coarse sneer at May’s ineffectual beauty.
A moment later he was in the hall, putting Madame Olenska’s cloak about her shoulders.
Through all his confusion of mind he had held fast to the resolve to say nothing that might startle or disturb her. Convinced that no power could now turn him from his purpose he had found strength to let events shape themselves as they would. But as he followed Madame Olenska into the hall he thought with a sudden hunger of being for a moment alone with her at the door of her carriage.
“Is your carriage here?” he asked; and at that moment Mrs. van der Luyden, who was being majestically inserted into her sables, said gently: “We are driving dear Ellen home.”
Archer’s heart gave a jerk, and Madame Olenska, clasping her cloak and fan with one hand, held out the other to him. “Goodbye,” she said.
“Goodbye—but I shall see you soon in Paris,” he answered aloud—it seemed to him that he had shouted it.
“Oh,” she murmured, “if you and May could come—!”
Mr. van der Luyden advanced to give her his arm, and Archer turned to Mrs. van der Luyden. For a moment, in the billowy darkness inside the big landau, he caught the dim oval of a face, eyes shining steadily—and she was gone.
As he went up the steps he crossed Lawrence Lefferts coming down with his wife. Lefferts caught his host by the sleeve, drawing back to let Gertrude pass.
“I say, old chap: do you mind just letting it be understood that I’m dining with you at the club tomorrow night? Thanks so much, you old brick! Goodnight.”
“It DID go off beautifully, didn’t it?” May questioned from the threshold of the library.
Archer roused himself with a start. As soon as the last carriage had driven away, he had come up to the library and shut himself in, with the hope that his wife, who still lingered below, would go straight to her room. But there she stood, pale and drawn, yet radiating the factitious energy of one who has passed beyond fatigue.
“May I come and talk it over?” she asked.
“Of course, if you like. But you must be awfully sleepy—”
“No, I’m not sleepy. I should like to sit with you a little.”
“Very well,” he said, pushing her chair near the fire.
She sat down and he resumed his seat; but neither spoke for a long time. At length Archer began abruptly: “Since you’re not tired, and want to talk, there’s something I must tell you. I tried to the other night—.”
She looked at him quickly. “Yes, dear. Something about yourself?”
“About myself. You say you’re not tired: well, I am. Horribly tired … “
In an instant she was all tender anxiety. “Oh, I’ve seen it coming on, Newland! You’ve been so wickedly overworked—”
“Perhaps it’s that. Anyhow, I want to make a break—”
“A break? To give up the law?”
“To go away, at any rate—at once. On a long trip, ever so far off—away from everything—”
He paused, conscious that he had failed in his attempt to speak with the indifference of a man who longs for a change, and is yet too weary to welcome it. Do what he would, the chord of eagerness vibrated. “Away from everything—” he repeated.
“Ever so far? Where, for instance?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. India—or Japan.”
She stood up, and as he sat with bent head, his chin propped on his hands, he felt her warmly and fragrantly hovering over him.
“As far as that? But I’m afraid you can’t, dear …” she said in an unsteady voice. “Not unless you’ll take me with you.” And then, as he was silent, she went on, in tones so clear and evenly-pitched that each separate syllable tapped like a little hammer on his brain: “That is, if the doctors will let me go … but I’m afraid they won’t. For you see, Newland, I’ve been sure since this morning of something I’ve been so longing and hoping for—”
He looked up at her with a sick stare, and she sank down, all dew and roses, and hid her face against his knee.
“Oh, my dear,” he said, holding her to him while his cold hand stroked her hair.
There was a long pause, which the inner devils filled with strident laughter; then May freed herself from his arms and stood up.
“You didn’t guess—?”
“Yes—I; no. That is, of course I hoped—”
They looked at each other for an instant and again fell silent; then, turning his eyes from hers, he asked abruptly: “Have you told any one else?”
“Only Mamma and your mother.” She paused, and then added hurriedly, the blood flushing up to her forehead: “That is—and Ellen. You know I told you we’d had a long talk one afternoon—and how dear s
he was to me.”
“Ah—” said Archer, his heart stopping.
He felt that his wife was watching him intently. “Did you MIND my telling her first, Newland?”
“Mind? Why should I?” He made a last effort to collect himself. “But that was a fortnight ago, wasn’t it? I thought you said you weren’t sure till today.”
Her colour burned deeper, but she held his gaze. “No; I wasn’t sure then—but I told her I was. And you see I was right!” she exclaimed, her blue eyes wet with victory. “And now Newland, I think I would like for us to celebrate.”
“How do you mean?”
She began unbuttoning her dress.
“Oh, May. I’m rather tired. Perhaps—”
“I’ll sit in your lap.”
“But you must be tired. The baby …”
She finished undressing and stood before him completely naked. “I need to feel you next to me,” she said. “You do know how I enjoy your touch.”
“Yes, but—”
She approached him, and began unfastening his trousers. He grasped her wrist to stop her. She pulled away from him almost violently.
“You want me to have a mind of my own,” she said. “You said that to me, Newland.” She looked at him intently. When she reached for his trousers again, he didn’t resist. She finished unfastening his attire only to discover for the first time in their marriage, he was not aroused, but hung soft and limp.
“Oh, Newland. I never expected …”
“I’m sorry, dear. I’m so weary.”
She began stroking his staff to no avail. She kneeled before him, took the crown of his manhood into her mouth, and began to suck, lightly at first, and then more vigorously. But he still did not become aroused, he remained limp. She massaged his jewels, but that did not help either.
Frustrated with May’s persistence and his failure to break with the Countess, Newland felt an anger rising, although he restrained himself. “I’m sorry, perhaps another night.”
May rose up. “What’s wrong, Newland? This has never happened before. Do I not please you?”
“I’m worried about you, about the baby.”
“Nonsense. The doctor said I could still pleasure my husband, at least for now.”
Newland started to rise. If she would not take her leave, then he would go. But May refused to let him pass and nudged him back down to the chair.
“It’s late,” he said, almost pleading.
“It would please me if you stayed.” When he looked confused, she explained. “I’m going to pleasure myself and I would greatly appreciate your company. That is, if it isn’t any trouble for you … husband.”
Newland opened his mouth to speak, but the look on her face stopped him from proffering any further excuses.
May pulled the chair he had set in front of the fireplace and placed it directly in front of him so that he would have a complete view of her orchid when she sat down and spread open her legs. From a side table that Newland never opened and so made a fine hiding place, May retrieved one of her French toys. She held up the faux manhood for him to see.
“I’ve been looking for this,” she said, smiling devilishly at him, as though she had misplaced the device.
What she had in store for this evening, Newland could only guess. And despite his affinity for theatrics in the bedroom, his anger was still weighing gravely upon his mind. All he could think of was how he had been deceived by the family—or more accurately, the families—and how he had been carefully manipulated by this small societal group.
His mind turned to thoughts of Ellen. He was plagued with horror when he considered what she must have thought when May told her she was with child, his child. What must her Granny have thought? Clearly, Granny had enough foresight to hand Ellen her hat and send her abroad. How convenient May’s timing had been to dispose of the matter. Although Newland could care less what society thought of Ellen and him. After all, he had been prepared to toss opinion aside for his happiness.
May moaned loudly, gaining Newland’s attention, and he suddenly knew that the sound was for his benefit. She must have been moaning softly, but he had been distracted, not even watching her as she pleasured herself, which of course, was so unlike his nature.
May dipped the faux member inside her sheath, not taking the full length of it, but only teasing the crown inside and out. “Are you sure you won’t join me, dear?” she asked, her eyes half closed, her jaw loose, her head lolled slightly back.
“Oh, May,” he said, not having an appropriate answer. Then he glanced down and saw that his trousers were unfastened and that he still hung limp. He had been so distracted that he had not bothered to adjust the pants.
“You’re tired, my dear,” she said hoarsely. “Let me pleasure myself for your enjoyment, if nothing else.” She licked her lower lip. And when he started to fasten his trousers, she said, “No, don’t, dear. You may change your mind yet.”
He started to get up from his chair again.
“Sit,” she said insistently.
Newland shrank into the chair.
“Do pay the mother of your unborn child some attention, dearest,” she said.
Newland frowned. He was trapped.
May continued dipping the toy in her sheath, and then rose up and positioned herself upon her knees. She squeezed her nipples, one at a time, threw her hair back, and then pulled the toy from her sheath. She brought it to her lips and placed it inside her mouth, moistening it further, and then brought it lower.
“I’d much rather it were you, dear,” she said and pushed the faux member inside her nether door. She writhed as the crown entered, and then her hips began undulating, taking the toy deeper inside.
“May?”
“It’s safe,” she whispered. “So … so safe,” she said, but soon she was at a loss for words. With one hand, she braced the toy as she slid it through her forbidden vessel. She squeezed her nipples with the other, and then slowly lowered her hand, following the curves of her body down to her intimate folds, where she found her inflamed pearl.
“Oh, yes, my darling …” Her eyelids fluttered, and then she opened them wide with a daring stare, that of a seductress, that of a woman filled with pure lust. Not blinking, she looked deeply into his eyes and continued to caress herself, taunting him, trying to entice him, while also moving her hips with a more determined and deliberate bend to consume the toy.
Though Newland did not move from his position, and merely watched, he was beginning to feel more aroused. Their stare remained unbroken.
May writhed and circled her shoulders as she moaned incessantly. Her voice was uninhibited, loud, and desirous. “If only you were inside of me,” she said, her voice scrappy, barely articulating the words.
Then Newland rose from his chair, his member now hard.
May closed her eyes. She suddenly shrieked aloud. It was moan that was altogether too familiar to Newland. When she opened her eyes again, setting her glance upon him exactly as it had been before she closed them, he thought they might continue. But she held her hand in front of her, stopping him cold, shunning him. The opportunity was irretrievably lost.
Chapter 16
Newland Archer sat at the writing-table in his library in East Thirty-ninth Street.
He had just got back from a big official reception for the inauguration of the new galleries at the Metropolitan Museum, and the spectacle of those great spaces crowded with the spoils of the ages, where the throng of fashion circulated through a series of scientifically catalogued treasures, had suddenly pressed on a rusted spring of memory.
“Why, this used to be one of the old Cesnola rooms,” he heard some one say; and instantly everything about him vanished, and he was sitting alone on a hard leather divan against a radiator, while a slight figure in a long sealskin cloak moved away down the meagrely-fitted vista of the old Museum.
The vision had roused a host of other associations, and he sat looking with new eyes at the library which, for over thir
ty years, had been the scene of his solitary musings and of all the family confabulations.
It was the room in which most of the real things of his life had happened. There his wife, nearly twenty-six years ago, had broken to him, with a blushing circumlocution that would have caused the young women of the new generation to smile, the news that she was to have a child; and there their eldest boy, Dallas, too delicate to be taken to church in midwinter, had been christened by their old friend the Bishop of New York, the ample magnificent irreplaceable Bishop, so long the pride and ornament of his diocese. There Dallas had first staggered across the floor shouting “Dad,” while May and the nurse laughed behind the door; there their second child, Mary (who was so like her mother), had announced her engagement to the dullest and most reliable of Reggie Chivers’s many sons; and there Archer had kissed her through her wedding veil before they went down to the motor which was to carry them to Grace Church—for in a world where all else had reeled on its foundations the “Grace Church wedding” remained an unchanged institution.
It was in the library that he and May had always discussed the future of the children: the studies of Dallas and his young brother Bill, Mary’s incurable indifference to “accomplishments,” and passion for sport and philanthropy, and the vague leanings toward “art” which had finally landed the restless and curious Dallas in the office of a rising New York architect.
The young men nowadays were emancipating themselves from the law and business and taking up all sorts of new things. If they were not absorbed in state politics or municipal reform, the chances were that they were going in for Central American archaeology, for architecture or landscape-engineering; taking a keen and learned interest in the prerevolutionary buildings of their own country, studying and adapting Georgian types, and protesting at the meaningless use of the word “Colonial.” Nobody nowadays had “Colonial” houses except the millionaire grocers of the suburbs.
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