Edith Wharton - Novel 21

by The Buccaneers (v2. 1)

  “We’re not here to discuss my merits, Lord Richard. Indeed you seem to have doubted them a moment ago.” He stared, and she remembered that subtlety was always lost on him. “You imagined, knowing that I was in your mother’s confidence, that I might betray it. Was that it?”

  His look of embarrassment returned. “I—you’re so hard on a fellow…”

  “I don’t want to be hard on you. But, since you suspected I might tell your secrets, you must excuse my suspecting you—”

  “Me? Of what?”

  Miss Testvalley was silent. A hundred thoughts rushed through her brain—preoccupations both grave and trivial. It had always been thus with her, and she could never see that it was otherwise with life itself, where unimportant trifles and grave anxieties so often darkened the way with their joint shadows. At Nan St George’s age, Miss Testvalley, though already burdened with the care and responsibilities of middle life, had longed with all Nan’s longing to wear white tulle and be invited to a ball. She had never been invited to a ball, had never worn white tulle; and now, at nearly forty, and scarred by hardships and disappointments, she still felt that early pang, still wondered what, in life, ought to be classed as trifling, and what as grave. She looked again at Lord Richard. “No,” she said, “I’ve only one stipulation to make.”

  He cleared his throat. “Er—yes?”

  “Lord Richard—are you truly and sincerely in love with Conchita?”

  The young man’s sallow face crimsoned to the roots of his hair, and even his freckled hands, with their short square fingers, grew red. “In love with her?” he stammered. “I… I never saw a girl that could touch her…”

  There was something curiously familiar about the phrase; and she reflected that the young man had not renewed his vocabulary. Miss Testvalley smiled faintly. “Conchita’s very charming,” she continued. “I wouldn’t for the world have anything—anything that I could prevent—endanger her happiness.”

  Lord Richard’s flush turned to a sudden pallor. “I—I swear to you I’d shoot myself sooner than let anything harm a hair of her head.”

  Miss Testvalley was silent again. Lord Richard stirred uneasily in his chair, and she saw that he was trying to interpret her meaning. She stood up and gathered her old beaded dolman about her shoulders. “I mean to believe you, Lord Richard,” she announced abruptly. “I hope I’m not wrong.”

  “Wrong? God bless you, Laura.” He held out his blunt hand. “I’ll never forget—never.”

  “Never forget your promise about Conchita. That’s all I ask.” She began to move toward the door, and slowly, awkwardly, he moved at her side. On the threshold she turned back to him. “No, it’s not all—there’s something else.” His face clouded again, and his look of alarm moved her. Poor blundering boy that he still was! Perhaps his father had been too hard on him.

  “What I’m going to ask is a trifle… yet at that age nothing is a trifle… Lord Richard, I’ll back you up through thick and thin if you’ll manage to get Miss Closson’s bridesmaids invited to the Assembly ball next week.”

  He looked at her in bewilderment. “The Assembly ball?”

  “Yes. They’ve invited you, I know; and your fiancée. In New York it’s considered a great honour—almost” (she smiled) “like being invited to Court in England…

  “Oh, come,” he interjected. “There’s nothing like a Court here.”

  “No; but this is the nearest approach. And my two girls, the St Georges, and their friends the Elmsworths, are not very well-known in the fashionable set which manages the Assemblies. Of course they can’t all be invited; and indeed Nan is too young for balls. But Virginia St George and Lizzy Elmsworth ought not to be left out. Such things hurt young people cruelly. They’ve just been helping Conchita to arrange her dress, knowing all the while they were not going themselves. I thought it charming of them…”

  Lord Richard stood before her in perplexity. “I’m dreadfully sorry. It is hard on them, certainly. I’d forgotten all about that ball. But can’t their parents—?”

  “Their parents, I’m afraid, are the obstacle.”

  He bent his puzzled eyes on the ground, but at length light seemed to break on him. “Oh, I see. They’re not in the right set? They seem to think a lot about sets in the States, don’t they?”

  “Enormously. But as you’ve been invited—through Mrs. Parmore, I understand—and Mr. de Santos-Dios also, you two, between you, can certainly get invitations for Virginia and Lizzy. You can count on me, Lord Richard, and I shall count on you. I’ve never asked you a favour before, have I?”

  “Oh, but I say—I’d do anything, of course. But how the devil can I, when I’m a stranger here?”

  “Because you’re a stranger—because you’re Lord Richard Marable. I should think you need only ask one of the patronesses. Or that clever monkey Santos-Dios will help you, as he has with your correspondence.” Lord Richard reddened. “In any case,” Miss Testvalley continued, “I don’t wish to know how you do it; and of course you must not say that it’s my suggestion. Any mention of that would ruin everything. But you must get those invitations, Lord Richard.”

  She held him for a second with her quick decisive smile, just touched his hand, and walked out of the hotel.

  New York society in the ‘seventies was a nursery of young beauties, and Mrs. Parmore and Mrs. Eglinton would have told any newcomer from the old world that he would see at an Assembly ball faces to outrival all the court-beauties of Europe. There were rumours, now and then, that others even surpassing the Assembly standard had been seen at the Opera (on off-nights, when the fashionable let, or gave away, their boxes, or at such promiscuous annual entertainments as the Charity ball, the Seventh Regiment ball, and so on. And of late, more particularly, people had been talking of a Miss Closson, daughter or step-daughter of a Mr. Closson, who was a stock-broker or railway-director—or was he a coffee planter in South America? The facts about Mr. Closson were few and vague, but he had a certain notoriety in Wall Street and on the fashionable race-courses, and had now come into newspaper prominence through the engagement of his daughter (or step-daughter) to Lord Richard Marable, a younger son of the Marquess of Brightlingsea… (No, my dear, you must pronounce it Brittlesey.) Some of the fashionable young men had met Miss Closson, and spoken favourably, even enthusiastically, of her charms; but then young men are always attracted by novelty, and by a slight flavour of, shall we say fastness, or anything just a trifle off-colour?

  The Assembly ladies felt it would be surprising if any Miss Closson could compete in loveliness with Miss Alida Parmore, Miss Julia Vandercamp, or, among the married, with the radiant Mrs. Casimir Dulac, or Mrs. Fred Alston, who had been a van der Luyden. They were not afraid, as they gathered on the shining floor of Delmonico’s ball-room, of any challenge to the supremacy of these beauties.

  Miss Closson’s arrival was, nevertheless, awaited with a certain curiosity. Mrs. Parmore had been very clever about her invitation. It was impossible to invite Lord Richard without his fiancée, since their wedding was to take place the following week; and the ladies were eager to let a scion of the British nobility see what a New York Assembly had to show. But to invite the Closson parents was obviously impossible. No one knew who they were, or where they came from (beyond the vague tropical background), and Mrs. Closson was said to be a divorcée, and to lie in bed all day smoking enormous cigars. But Mrs. Parmore, whose daughter’s former governess was now with a family who knew the Clossons, had learned that there was a Closson step-son, a clever little fellow with a Spanish name, who was a great friend of Lord Richard’s, and was to be his best man; and of course it was perfectly proper to invite Miss Closson with her own brother. One or two of the more conservative patronesses had indeed wavered, and asked what further concessions this might lead to; but Mrs. Parmore’s party gained the day, and rich was their reward, for at the eleventh hour Mrs. Parmore was able to announce that Lord Richard’s sisters, the Ladies Ulrica and Honoria, had unexpectedly arriv
ed for their brother’s wedding, and were anxious, they too—could anything be more gratifying?—to accompany him to the ball.

  Their appearance, for a moment, over-shadowed Miss Closson’s; yet perhaps (or so some of the young men said afterward) each of the three girls was set off by the charms of the others. They were so complementary in their graces, each seemed to have been so especially created by Providence, and adorned by coiffeur and dressmaker, to make part of that matchless trio, that their entrance was a sight long remembered, not only by the young men thronging about them to be introduced but by the elderly gentlemen who surveyed them from a distance with critical and reminiscent eyes. The patronesses, whose own daughters risked a momentary eclipse, were torn between fears and admiration; but after all these lovely English girls, one so dazzlingly fair, the other so darkly vivid, who framed Miss Closson in their contrasting beauty were only transient visitors; and Miss Closson was herself soon to rejoin them in England, and might some day, as the daughter-in-law of a Marquess, remember gratefully that New York had set its social seal on her.

  No such calculations troubled the dancing men. They had found three new beauties to waltz with—and how they waltzed! The rumour that London dancing was far below the New York standard was not likely to find credit with any one who had danced with the Ladies Marable. The tall fair one—was she the Lady Honoria?—was perhaps the more harmonious in her movements; but the Lady Ulrica, as befitted her flashing good looks, was as nimble as a gipsy; and if Conchita Closson polka-ed and waltzed as well as the English girls, these surpassed her in the gliding elegance of the square dances.

  At supper they were as bewitching as on the floor. Nowhere in the big supper-room, about the flower-decked tables, was the talk merrier, the laughter louder (a shade too loud, perhaps?—but that may have been the fault of the young men), than in the corner where the three girls, enclosed in a dense body-guard of admirers, feasted on champagne and terrapin. As Mrs. Eglinton, with some bitterness, afterward remarked to Mrs. Parmore, it was absurd to say that English girls had no conversation, when these charming creatures had chattered all night like magpies. She hoped it would teach their own girls that there were moments when a little innocent abandon was not unsuitable.

  In the small hours of the same night a knock at her door waked Miss Testvalley out of an uneasy sleep. She sat up with a start, and lighting her candle beheld a doleful little figure in a beribboned pink wrapper.

  “Why, Annabel—aren’t you well?” she exclaimed, setting down her candle beside the Book of Common Prayer and the small volume of poems which always lay together on her night-table.

  “Oh, don’t call me Annabel, please! I can’t sleep, and I feel so lonely…”

  “My poor Nan! Come and sit on the bed. What’s the matter, child? You’re half frozen!” Miss Testvalley, thankful that before going to bed she had wound her white net scarf over her crimping-pins, sat up and drew the quilt around her pupil.

  “I’m not frozen; I’m just lonely. I did want to go to that ball,” Nan confessed, throwing her arms about her governess.

  “Well, my dear, there’ll be plenty of other balls for you when the time comes.”

  “Oh, but will there? I’m not a bit sure; and Jinny’s not either. She only got asked to this one because Lord Richard fixed it up. I don’t know how he did it; but I suppose those old Assembly scare-crows are such snobs—”

  “Annabel!”

  “Oh, bother! When you know they are. If they hadn’t been, wouldn’t they have invited Jinny and Lizzy long ago to all their parties?”

  “I don’t think that question need trouble us. Now that your sister and Lizzy Elmsworth have been seen they’re sure to be invited again; and when your turn comes…”

  Suddenly she felt herself pushed back against her pillows by her pupil’s firm young hands. “Miss Testvalley! How can you talk like that, when you know the only way they got invited—”

  Miss Testvalley, rearing herself up severely, shook off Nan’s clutch. “Annabel! I’ve no idea how they were invited; I can’t imagine what you mean. And I must ask you not to be impertinent.”

  Nan gazed at her for a moment, and then buried her face among the pillows in a wild rush of laughter.

  “Annabel!” the governess repeated, still more severely; but Nan’s shoulders continued to shake with mirth.

  “My dear, you told me you’d waked me up because you felt lonely. If all you wanted was some one to giggle with, you’d better go back to bed, and wait for your sister to come home.”

  Nan lifted a penitent countenance to her governess. “Oh, she won’t be home for hours. And I promise I won’t laugh any more. Only it is so funny! But do let me stay a little longer; please! Read aloud to me, there’s a darling; read me some poetry, won’t you?”

  She wriggled down under the bed-quilt, and crossing her arms behind her, laid her head back against them, so that her brown curls overflowed on the pillow. Her face had grown wistful again, and her eyes were full of entreaty.

  Miss Testvalley reached out for Hymns Ancient and Modern. But after a moment’s hesitation she put it back beside the prayer-book, and took up instead the volume of poetry which always accompanied her on her travels.

  “Now listen; listen very quietly, or I won’t go on.” Almost solemnly she began to read.

  “The blessed damozel leaned out

  From the gold bar of Heaven:

  Her eyes were deeper than the depth

  Of waters stilled at even;

  She had three lilies in her hand,

  And the stars in her hair were seven.”

  Miss Testvalley read slowly, chantingly, with a rich murmur of vowels, and a lingering stress on the last word of the last line, as though it symbolized something grave and mysterious. Seven…

  “That’s lovely,” Nan sighed. She lay motionless, her eyes wide, her lips a little parted.

  “Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,

  No wrought flowers did adorn,

  But a white rose of Mary’s gift…”

  “I shouldn’t have cared much for that kind of dress, should you? I suppose it had angel sleeves, if she was in heaven. When I go to my first ball I want to have a dress that fits; and I’d like it to be pale blue velvet, embroidered all over with seed-pearls, like I saw…”

  “My dear, if you want to talk about ball-dresses, I should advise you to go to the sewing-room and get the maid’s copy of Butterick’s Magazine,” said Miss Testvalley icily.

  “No, no! I want to hear the poem—I do! Please read it to me, Miss Testvalley. See how good I am.”

  Miss Testvalley resumed her reading. The harmonious syllables flowed on, weaving their passes about the impatient young head on the pillow. Presently Miss Testvalley laid the book aside, and folding her hands continued her murmur of recital.

  “And still she bowed herself and stooped

  Out of the circling charm;

  Until her bosom must have made

  The bar she leaned on warm…”

  She paused, hesitating for the next line, and Nan’s drowsy eyes drifted to her face. “How heavenly! But you know it all by heart.”

  “Oh, yes; I know it by heart.”

  “I never heard anything so lovely. Who wrote it?”

  “My cousin, Dante Gabriel.”

  “Your own cousin?” Nan’s eyes woke up.

  “Yes, dear. Listen:

  “And the lilies lay as if asleep

  Along her bended arm…

  “The sun was gone now; the curled moon

  Was like a little feather…”

  “Do you mean to say he’s your very own cousin? Aren’t you madly in love with him, Miss Testvalley?”

  “Poor Dante Gabriel! My dear, he’s a widower, and very stout—and has caused all the family a good deal of trouble.”

  Nan’s face fell. “Oh—a widower? What a pity… If I had a cousin who was a poet I should be madly in love with him. And I should desert my marble palace to flee with him to the
isles of Greece.”

  “Ah—and when are you going to live in a marble palace?”

  “When I’m an ambassadress, of course. Lord Richard says that ambassadresses… Oh, darling, don’t stop! I do long to hear the rest… I do, really…”

  Mis Testvalley resumed her recital, sinking her voice as she saw Nan’s lids gradually sink over her questioning eyes till at last the long lashes touched her cheeks. Miss Testvalley murmured on, ever more softly, to the end; then, blowing out the candle, she slid down to Nan’s side so gently that the sleeper did not move. “She might have been my own daughter,” the governess thought, composing her narrow frame to rest, and listening in the darkness to Nan’s peaceful breathing.

  Miss Testvalley did not fall asleep herself. She lay speculating rather nervously over the meaning of her pupil’s hysterical burst of giggling. She was delighted that Lord Richard had succeeded in getting invitations to the ball for Virginia and Lizzy Elmsworth; but she could not understand why Nan regarded his having done so as particularly droll. Probably, she reflected, it was because the invitations had been asked for and obtained without Mrs. St George’s knowledge. Everything was food for giggles when that light-hearted company were together, and nothing amused them more than to play a successful trick on Mrs. St George. In any case, the girls had had their evening—and a long evening it must have been, since the late winter dawn was chilling the windows when Miss Testvalley at length heard Virginia on the stairs.

  Lord Richard Marable, as it turned out, had underrated his family’s interest in his projected marriage. No doubt, as Miss Testvalley had surmised, his announcement of the event had been late in reaching them; but the day before the wedding a cable came. It was not, however, addressed to Lord Richard, or to his bride, but to Miss Testvalley, who, having opened it with surprise (for she had never before received a cable) read it in speechless perplexity.