Roman Fever and Other Stories

by Edith Wharton

  Mrs. Plinth hastily interposed: “I beg you won’t read it aloud if there’s anything offensive.”

  Miss Van Vluyck, without answering, continued her silent scrutiny.

  “Well, what is it?” exclaimed Laura Glyde excitedly.

  “Do tell us!” urged Mrs. Leveret, feeling that she would have something awful to tell her sister.

  Miss Van Vluyck pushed the volume aside and turned slowly toward the expectant group.

  “It’s a river.”

  “A river?”

  “Yes: in Brazil. Isn’t that where she’s been living?”

  “Who? Fanny Roby? Oh, but you must be mistaken. You’ve been reading the wrong thing,” Mrs. Ballinger exclaimed, leaning over her to seize the volume.

  “It’s the only Xingu in the Encyclopædia; and she has been living in Brazil,” Miss Van Vluyck persisted.

  “Yes: her brother has a consulship there,” Mrs. Leveret interposed.

  “But it’s too ridiculous! I—we—why we all remember studying Xingu last year—or the year before last,” Mrs. Ballinger stammered.

  “I thought I did when you said so,” Laura Glyde avowed.

  “I said so?” cried Mrs. Ballinger.

  “Yes. You said it had crowded everything else out of your mind.”

  “Well you said it had changed your whole life!”

  “For that matter, Miss Van Vluyck said she had never grudged the time she’d given it.”

  Mrs. Plinth interposed: “I made it clear that I knew nothing whatever of the original.”

  Mrs. Ballinger broke off the dispute with a groan. “Oh, what does it all matter if she’s been making fools of us? I believe Miss Van Vluyck’s right—she was talking of the river all the while!”

  “How could she? It’s too preposterous,” Miss Glyde exclaimed.

  “Listen.” Miss Van Vluyck had repossessed herself of the Encyclopædia, and restored her spectacles to a nose reddened by excitement. “ ‘The Xingu, one of the principal rivers of Brazil, rises on the plateau of Mato Grosso, and flows in a northerly direction for a length of no less than one thousand one hundred and eighteen miles, entering the Amazon near the mouth of the latter river. The upper course of the Xingu is auriferous and fed by numerous branches. Its source was first discovered in 1884 by the German explorer von den Steinen, after a difficult and dangerous expedition through a region inhabited by tribes still in the Stone Age of culture.’ ”

  The ladies received this communication in a state of stupefied silence from which Mrs. Leveret was the first to rally. “She certainly did speak of its having branches.”

  The word seemed to snap the last thread of their incredulity. “And of its great length,” gasped Mrs. Ballinger.

  “She said it was awfully deep, and you couldn’t skip—you just had to wade through,” Miss Glyde added.

  The idea worked its way more slowly through Mrs. Plinth’s compact resistances. “How could there be anything improper about a river?” she enquired.

  “Improper?”

  “Why, what she said about the source—that it was corrupt?”

  “Not corrupt, but hard to get at,” Laura Glyde corrected. “Some one who’d been there had told her so. I daresay it was the explorer himself—doesn’t it say the expedition was dangerous?”

  “ ‘Difficult and dangerous,’ ” read Miss Van Vluyck.

  Mrs. Ballinger pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. “There’s nothing she said that wouldn’t apply to a river—to this river!” She swung about excitedly to the other members. “Why, do you remember her telling us that she hadn’t read ‘The Supreme Instant’ because she’d taken it on a boating party while she was staying with her brother, and some one had ‘shied’ it overboard—‘shied’ of course was her own expression.”

  The ladies breathlessly signified that the expression had not escaped them.

  “Well—and then didn’t she tell Osric Dane that one of her books was simply saturated with Xingu? Of course it was, if one of Mrs. Roby’s rowdy friends had thrown it into the river!”

  This surprising reconstruction of the scene in which they had just participated left the members of the Lunch Club inarticulate. At length, Mrs. Plinth, after visibly labouring with the problem, said in a heavy tone: “Osric Dane was taken in too.”

  Mrs. Leveret took courage at this. “Perhaps that’s what Mrs. Roby did it for. She said Osric Dane was a brute, and she may have wanted to give her a lesson.”

  Miss Van Vluyck frowned. “It was hardly worth while to do it at our expense.”

  “At least,” said Miss Glyde with a touch of bitterness, “she succeeded in interesting her, which was more than we did.”

  “What chance had we?” rejoined Mrs. Ballinger. “Mrs. Roby monopolised her from the first. And that, I’ve no doubt, was her purpose—to give Osric Dane a false impression of her own standing in the club. She would hesitate at nothing to attract attention: we all know how she took in poor Professor Foreland.”

  “She actually makes him give bridge-teas every Thursday,” Mrs. Leveret piped up.

  Laura Glyde struck her hands together. “Why, this is Thursday, and it’s there she’s gone, of course; and taken Osric with her!”

  “And they’re shrieking over us at this moment,” said Mrs. Ballinger between her teeth.

  This possibility seemed too preposterous to be admitted. “She would hardly dare,” said Miss Van Vluyck, “confess the imposture to Osric Dane.”

  “I’m not so sure: I thought I saw her make a sign as she left. If she hadn’t made a sign, why should Osric Dane have rushed out after her?”

  “Well, you know, we’d all been telling her how wonderful Xingu was, and she said she wanted to find out more about it,” Mrs. Leveret said, with a tardy impulse of justice to the absent.

  This reminder, far from mitigating the wrath of the other members, gave it a stronger impetus.

  “Yes—and that’s exactly what they’re both laughing over now,” said Laura Glyde ironically.

  Mrs. Plinth stood up and gathered her expensive furs about her monumental form. “I have no wish to criticise,” she said; “but unless the Lunch Club can protect its members against the recurrence of such—such unbecoming scenes, I for one—”

  “Oh, so do I!” agreed Miss Glyde, rising also.

  Miss Van Vluyck closed the Encyclopædia and proceeded to button herself into her jacket. “My time is really too valuable—” she began.

  “I fancy we are all of one mind,” said Mrs. Ballinger, looking searchingly at Mrs. Leveret, who looked at the others.

  “I always deprecate anything like a scandal—” Mrs. Plinth continued.

  “She has been the cause of one to-day!” exclaimed Miss Glyde.

  Mrs. Leveret moaned: “I don’t see how she could!” and Miss Van Vluyck said, picking up her note-book: “Some women stop at nothing.”

  “—but if,” Mrs. Plinth took up her argument impressively, “anything of the kind had happened in my house” (it never would have, her tone implied), “I should have felt that I owed it to myself either to ask for Mrs. Roby’s resignation—or to offer mine.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Plinth—” gasped the Lunch Club.

  “Fortunately for me,” Mrs. Plinth continued with an awful magnanimity, “the matter was taken out of my hands by our President’s decision that the right to entertain distinguished guests was a privilege vested in her office; and I think the other members will agree that, as she was alone in this opinion, she ought to be alone in deciding on the best way of effacing its—its really deplorable consequences.”

  A deep silence followed this outbreak of Mrs. Plinth’s long-stored resentment.

  “I don’t see why I should be expected to ask her to resign—” Mrs. Ballinger at length began; but Laura Glyde turned back to remind her: “You know she made you say that you’d got on swimmingly in Xingu.”

  An ill-timed giggle escaped from Mrs. Leveret, and Mrs. Ballinger energetically continued “—b
ut you needn’t think for a moment that I’m afraid to!”

  The door of the drawing-room closed on the retreating backs of the Lunch Club, and the President of that distinguished association, seating herself at her writing-table, and pushing away a copy of “The Wings of Death” to make room for her elbow, drew forth a sheet of the club’s note-paper, on which she began to write: “My dear Mrs. Roby—”

  The Other Two

  I.

  WAYTHORN, on the drawing-room hearth, waited for his wife to come down to dinner. It was their first night under his own roof, and he was surprised at his thrill of boyish agitation. He was not so old, to be sure—his glass gave him little more than the five-and-thirty years to which his wife confessed—but he had fancied himself already in the temperate zone; yet here he was listening for her step with a tender sense of all it symbolised, with some old trail of verse about the garlanded nuptial door-posts floating through his enjoyment of the pleasant room and the good dinner just beyond it.

  They had been hastily recalled from their honeymoon by the illness of Lily Haskett, the child of Mrs. Waythorn’s first marriage. The little girl, at Waythorn’s desire, had been transferred to his house on the day of her mother’s wedding, and the doctor, on their arrival, broke the news that she was ill with typhoid, but declared that all the symptoms were favourable. Lily could show twelve years of unblemished health, and the case promised to be a light one. The nurse spoke as reassuringly, and after a moment of alarm Mrs. Waythorn had adjusted herself to the situation. She was very fond of Lily—her affection for the child had perhaps been her decisive charm in Waythorn’s eyes—but she had the perfectly balanced nerves which her little girl had inherited, and no woman ever wasted less tissue in unproductive worry. Waythorn was therefore quite prepared to see her come in presently, a little late because of a last look at Lily, but as serene and well-appointed as if her goodnight kiss had been laid on the brow of health. Her composure was restful to him; it acted as ballast to his somewhat unstable sensibilities. As he pictured her bending over the child’s bed he thought how soothing her presence must be in illness: her very step would prognosticate recovery.

  His own life had been a gray one, from temperament rather than circumstance, and he had been drawn to her by the unperturbed gaiety which kept her fresh and elastic at an age when most women’s activities are growing either slack or febrile. He knew what was said about her; for, popular as she was, there had always been a faint undercurrent of detraction. When she had appeared in New York, nine or ten years earlier, as the pretty Mrs. Haskett whom Gus Varick had unearthed somewhere—was it in Pittsburgh or Utica?—society, while promptly accepting her, had reserved the right to cast a doubt on its own indiscrimination. Enquiry, however, established her undoubted connection with a socially reigning family, and explained her recent divorce as the natural result of a runaway match at seventeen; and as nothing was known of Mr. Haskett it was easy to believe the worst of him.

  Alice Haskett’s remarriage with Gus Varick was a passport to the set whose recognition she coveted, and for a few years the Varicks were the most popular couple in town. Unfortunately, the alliance was brief and stormy, and this time the husband had his champions. Still, even Varick’s staunchest supporters admitted that he was not meant for matrimony, and Mrs. Varick’s grievances were of a nature to bear the inspection of the New York courts. A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue, and in the semi-widowhood of this second separation Mrs. Varick took on an air of sanctity, and was allowed to confide her wrongs to some of the most scrupulous ears in town. But when it was known that she was to marry Waythorn there was a momentary reaction. Her best friends would have preferred to see her remain in the rôle of the injured wife, which was as becoming to her as crape to a rosy complexion. True, a decent time had elapsed, and it was not even suggested that Waythorn had supplanted his predecessor. People shook their heads over him, however, and one grudging friend, to whom he affirmed that he took the step with his eyes open, replied oracularly: “Yes—and with your ears shut.”

  Waythorn could afford to smile at these innuendoes. In the Wall Street phrase, he had “discounted” them. He knew that society has not yet adapted itself to the consequences of divorce, and that till the adaptation takes place every woman who uses the freedom the law accords her must be her own social justification. Waythorn had an amused confidence in his wife’s ability to justify herself. His expectations were fulfilled, and before the wedding took place Alice Varick’s group had rallied openly to her support. She took it all imperturbably: she had a way of surmounting obstacles without seeming to be aware of them, and Waythorn looked back with wonder at the trivialities over which he had worn his nerves thin. He had the sense of having found refuge in a richer, warmer nature than his own, and his satisfaction, at the moment, was humorously summed up in the thought that his wife, when she had done all she could for Lily, would not be ashamed to come down and enjoy a good dinner.

  The anticipation of such enjoyment was not, however, the sentiment expressed by Mrs. Waythorn’s charming face when she presently joined him. Though she had put on her most engaging teagown she had neglected to assume the smile that went with it, and Waythorn thought he had never seen her look so nearly worried.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Is anything wrong with Lily?”

  “No; I’ve just been in and she’s still sleeping.” Mrs. Waythorn hesitated. “But something tiresome has happened.”

  He had taken her two hands, and now perceived that he was crushing a paper between them. “This letter?”

  “Yes—Mr. Haskett has written—I mean his lawyer has written.”

  Waythorn felt himself flush uncomfortably. He dropped his wife’s hands.

  “What about?”

  “About seeing Lily. You know the courts—”

  “Yes, yes,” he interrupted nervously.

  Nothing was known about Haskett in New York. He was vaguely supposed to have remained in the outer darkness from which his wife had been rescued, and Waythorn was one of the few who were aware that he had given up his business in Utica and followed her to New York in order to be near his little girl. In the days of his wooing, Waythorn had often met Lily on the doorstep, rosy and smiling, on her way “to see papa.”

  “I am so sorry,” Mrs. Waythorn murmured.

  He roused himself. “What does he want?”

  “He wants to see her. You know she goes to him once a week.”

  “Well—he doesn’t expect her to go to him now, does he?”

  “No—he has heard of her illness; but he expects to come here.”

  “Here?”

  Mrs. Waythorn reddened under his gaze. They looked away from each other.

  “I’m afraid he has the right . . . . You’ll see . . . .” She made a proffer of the letter.

  Waythorn moved away with a gesture of refusal. He stood staring about the softly lighted room, which a moment before had seemed so full of bridal intimacy.

  “I’m so sorry,” she repeated. “If Lily could have been moved—”

  “That’s out of the question,” he returned impatiently.

  “I suppose so.”

  Her lip was beginning to tremble, and he felt himself a brute.

  “He must come, of course,” he said. “When is—his day?”

  “I’m afraid—to-morrow.”

  “Very well. Send a note in the morning.”

  The butler entered to announce dinner.

  Waythorn turned to his wife. “Come—you must be tired. It’s beastly, but try to forget about it,” he said, drawing her hand through his arm.

  “You’re so good, dear. I’ll try,” she whispered back.

  Her face cleared at once, and as she looked at him across the flowers, between the rosy candle-shades, he saw her lips waver back into a smile.

  “How pretty everything is!” she sighed luxuriously.

  He turned to the butler. “The champagne at once, please. Mrs. Waythorn is tired.”
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br />   In a moment or two their eyes met above the sparkling glasses. Her own were quite clear and untroubled: he saw that she had obeyed his injunction and forgotten.

  II.

  WAYTHORN, the next morning, went down town earlier than usual. Haskett was not likely to come till the afternoon, but the instinct of flight drove him forth. He meant to stay away all day—he had thoughts of dining at his club. As his door closed behind him he reflected that before he opened it again it would have admitted another man who had as much right to enter it as himself, and the thought filled him with a physical repugnance.

  He caught the “elevated” at the employees’ hour, and found himself crushed between two layers of pendulous humanity. At Eighth Street the man facing him wriggled out, and another took his place. Waythorn glanced up and saw that it was Gus Varick. The men were so close together that it was impossible to ignore the smile of recognition on Varick’s handsome overblown face. And after all—why not? They had always been on good terms, and Varick had been divorced before Waythorn’s attentions to his wife began. The two exchanged a word on the perennial grievance of the congested trains, and when a seat at their side was miraculously left empty the instinct of self-preservation made Waythorn slip into it after Varick.

  The latter drew the stout man’s breath of relief. “Lord—I was beginning to feel like a pressed flower.” He leaned back, looking unconcernedly at Waythorn. “Sorry to hear that Sellers is knocked out again.”

  “Sellers?” echoed Waythorn, starting at his partner’s name.

  Varick looked surprised. “You didn’t know he was laid up with the gout?”

  “No. I’ve been away—I only got back last night.” Waythorn felt himself reddening in anticipation of the other’s smile.

  “Ah—yes; to be sure. And Sellers’s attack came on two days ago. I’m afraid he’s pretty bad. Very awkward for me, as it happens, because he was just putting through a rather important thing for me.”

  “Ah?” Waythorn wondered vaguely since when Varick had been dealing in “important things.” Hitherto he had dabbled only in the shallow pools of speculation, with which Waythorn’s office did not usually concern itself.