The next three days demonstrated to her own complete satifaction
Miss Bart's ability to manage her affairs without extraneous aid.
As she sat, on the Saturday afternoon, on the terrace at
Bellomont, she smiled at Mrs. Trenor's fear that she might go too
fast. If such a warning had ever been needful, the years had
taught her a salutary lesson, and she flattered herself that she
now knew how to adapt her pace to the object of pursuit. In the
case of Mr. Gryce she had found it well to flutter ahead, losing
herself elusively and luring him on from depth to depth of
unconscious intimacy. The surrounding atmosphere was propitious
to this scheme of courtship. Mrs. Trenor, true to her word, had
shown no signs of expecting Lily at the bridge-table, and had
even hinted to the other card-players that they were to betray no
surprise at her unwonted defection. In consequence of this hint,
Lily found herself the centre of that feminine solicitude which
envelops a young woman in the mating season. A solitude was
tacitly created for her in the crowded existence of Bellomont,
and her friends could not have shown a greater readiness for
self-effacement had her wooing been adorned with all the
attributes of romance. In Lily's set this conduct implied a
sympathetic comprehension of her motives, and Mr. Gryce rose in
her esteem as she saw the consideration he inspired.
The terrace at Bellomont on a September afternoon was a spot
propitious to sentimental musings, and as Miss Bart stood leaning
against the balustrade above the sunken garden, at a little
distance from the animated group about the tea-table, she might
have been lost in the mazes of an inarticulate happiness. In
reality, her thoughts were finding definite utterance in the
tranquil recapitulation of the blessings in store for her. From
where she stood she could see them embodied in the form of Mr.
Gryce, who, in a light overcoat and muffler, sat somewhat
nervously on the edge of his chair, while Carry Fisher, with all
the energy of eye and gesture with which nature and art had
combined to endow her, pressed on him the duty of taking part in
the task of municipal reform.
Mrs. Fisher's latest hobby was municipal reform. It had been
preceded by an equal zeal for socialism, which had in turn
replaced an energetic advocacy of Christian Science. Mrs. Fisher
was small, fiery and dramatic; and her hands and eyes were
admirable instruments in the service of whatever causes he
happened to espouse. She had, however, the fault common to
enthusiasts of ignoring any slackness of response on the part of
her hearers, and Lily was amused by her unconsciousness of the
resistance displayed in every angle of Mr. Gryce's attitude. Lily
herself knew that his mind was divided between the dread of
catching cold if he remained out of doors too long at that hour,
and the fear that, if he retreated to the house, Mrs. Fisher
might follow him up with a paper to be signed. Mr. Gryce had a
constitutional dislike to what he called "committing himself,"
and tenderly as he cherished his health, he evidently concluded
that it was safer to stay out of reach of pen and ink till chance
released him from Mrs. Fisher's toils. Meanwhile he cast agonized
glances in the direction of Miss Bart, whose only response was to
sink into an attitude of more graceful abstraction. She had
learned the value of contrast in throwing her charms into relief,
and was fully aware of the extent to which Mrs. Fisher's
volubility was enhancing her own repose.
She was roused from her musings by the approach of her cousin
Jack Stepney who, at Gwen Van Osburgh's side, was returning
across the garden from the tennis court.
The couple in question were engaged in the same kind of romance
in which Lily figured, and the latter felt a certain annoyance in
contemplating what seemed to her a caricature of her own
situation. Miss Van Osburgh was a large girl with flat surfaces
and no high lights: Jack Stepney had once said of her that she
was as reliable as roast mutton. His own taste was in the line of
less solid and more highly-seasoned diet; but hunger makes any
fare palatable, and there had been times when Mr. Stepney had
been reduced to a crust.
Lily considered with interest the expression of their faces: the
girl's turned toward her companion's like an empty plate held up
to be filled, while the man lounging at her side already betrayed
the encroaching boredom which would presently crack the thin
veneer of his smile.
"How impatient men are!" Lily reflected. "All Jack has to do to
get everything he wants is to keep quiet and let that girl marry
him; whereas I have to calculate and contrive, and retreat and
advance, as if I were going through an intricate dance,
where one misstep would throw me hopelessly out of time."
As they drew nearer she was whimsically struck by a kind of
family likeness between Miss Van Osburgh and Percy Gryce. There
was no resemblance of feature. Gryce was handsome in a didactic
way--he looked like a clever pupil's drawing from a
plaster-cast--while Gwen's countenance had no more modelling than
a face painted on a toy balloon. But the deeper affinity was
unmistakable: the two had the same prejudices and ideals, and the
same quality of making other standards non-existent by ignoring
them. This attribute was common to most of Lily's set: they had a
force of negation which eliminated everything beyond their own
range of perception. Gryce and Miss Van Osburgh were, in short,
made for each other by every law of moral and physical
correspondence---"Yet they wouldn't look at each other," Lily
mused, "they never do. Each of them wants a creature of a
different race, of Jack's race and mine, with all sorts of
intuitions, sensations and perceptions that they don't even guess
the existence of. And they always get what they want."
She stood talking with her cousin and Miss Van Osburgh, till a
slight cloud on the latter's brow advised her that even cousinly
amenities were subject to suspicion, and Miss Bart, mindful of
the necessity of not exciting enmities at this crucial point of
her career, dropped aside while the happy couple proceeded toward
the tea-table.
Seating herself on the upper step of the terrace, Lily leaned her
head against the honeysuckles wreathing the balustrade. The
fragrance of the late blossoms seemed an emanation of the
tranquil scene, a landscape tutored to the last degree of rural
elegance. In the foreground glowed the warm tints of the gardens.
Beyond the lawn, with its pyramidal pale-gold maples and velvety
firs, sloped pastures dotted with cattle; and through a long
glade the river widened like a lake under the silver light of
September. Lily did not want to join the circle about the
tea-table. They represented the future she had chosen, and she
was content with it, but in no haste to anticipate its joys. The
certainty that she could marry Percy Gryce when she pleased had
lifted a heavy load from her mind, and her money troubles were
too recent for their removal not to leave a sense of
relief which a less discerning intelligence might have taken for
happiness. Her vulgar cares were at an end. She would be able to
arrange her life as she pleased, to soar into that empyrean of
security where creditors cannot penetrate. She would have smarter
gowns than Judy Trenor, and far, far more jewels than Bertha
Dorset. She would be free forever from the shifts, the
expedients, the humiliations of the relatively poor. Instead of
having to flatter, she would be flattered; instead of being
grateful, she would receive thanks. There were old scores she
could pay off as well as old benefits she could return. And she
had no doubts as to the extent of her power. She knew that Mr.
Gryce was of the small chary type most inaccessible to impulses
and emotions. He had the kind of character in which prudence is a
vice, and good advice the most dangerous nourishment. But Lily
had known the species before: she was aware that such a guarded
nature must find one huge outlet of egoism, and she determined to
be to him what his Americana had hitherto been: the one
possession in which he took sufficient pride to spend money on
it. She knew that this generosity to self is one of the forms of
meanness, and she resolved so to identify herself with her
husband's vanity that to gratify her wishes would be to him the
most exquisite form of self-indulgence. The system might at first
necessitate a resort to some of the very shifts and expedients
from which she intended it should free her; but she felt sure
that in a short time she would be able to play the game in her
own way. How should she have distrusted her powers? Her beauty
itself was not the mere ephemeral possession it might have been
in the hands of inexperience: her skill in enhancing it, the care
she took of it, the use she made of it, seemed to give it a kind
of permanence. She felt she could trust it to carry her through
to the end.
And the end, on the whole, was worthwhile. Life was not the
mockery she had thought it three days ago. There was room for
her, after all, in this crowded selfish world of pleasure whence,
so short a time since, her poverty had seemed to exclude her.
These people whom she had ridiculed and yet envied were glad to
make a place for her in the charmed circle about which all her
desires revolved. They were not as brutal and self-engrossed as
she had fancied--or rather, since it would no longer be
necessary to flatter and humour them, that side of their nature
became less conspicuous. Society is a revolving body which is apt
to be judged according to its place in each man's heaven; and at
present it was turning its illuminated face to Lily.
In the rosy glow it diffused her companions seemed full of
amiable qualities. She liked their elegance, their lightness,
their lack of emphasis: even the self-assurance which at times
was so like obtuseness now seemed the natural sign of social
ascendency. They were lords of the only world she cared for, and
they were ready to admit her to their ranks and let her lord it
with them. Already she felt within her a stealing allegiance to
their standards, an acceptance of their limitations, a disbelief
in the things they did not believe in, a contemptuous pity for
the people who were not able to live as they lived.
The early sunset was slanting across the park. Through the boughs
of the long avenue beyond the gardens she caught the flash of
wheels, and divined that more visitors were approaching. There
was a movement behind her, a scattering of steps and voices: it
was evident that the party about the tea-table was breaking up.
Presently she heard a tread behind her on the terrace. She
supposed that Mr. Gryce had at last found means to escape from
his predicament, and she smiled at the significance of his coming
to join her instead of beating an instant retreat to the
fire-side.
She turned to give him the welcome which such gallantry deserved;
but her greeting wavered into a blush of wonder, for the man who
had approached her was Lawrence Selden.
"You see I came after all," he said; but before she had time to
answer, Mrs. Dorset, breaking away from a lifeless colloquy with
her host, had stepped between them with a little gesture of
appropriation.
The observance of Sunday at Bellomont was chiefly marked by the
punctual appearance of the smart omnibus destined to convey the
household to the little church at the gates. Whether any one got
into the omnibus or not was a matter of secondary importance,
since by standing there it not only bore witness to the orthodox
intentions of the family, but made Mrs. Trenor feel, when she
finally heard it drive away, that she had somehow vicariously
made use of it.
It was Mrs. Trenor's theory that her daughters actually did go to
church every Sunday; but their French governess's convictions
calling her to the rival fane, and the fatigues of the week
keeping their mother in her room till luncheon, there was seldom
any one present to verify the fact. Now and then, in a spasmodic
burst of virtue--when the house had been too uproarious over
night--Gus Trenor forced his genial bulk into a tight frock-coat
and routed his daughters from their slumbers; but habitually, as
Lily explained to Mr. Gryce, this parental duty was forgotten
till the church bells were ringing across the park, and the
omnibus had driven away empty.
Lily had hinted to Mr. Gryce that this neglect of religious
observances was repugnant to her early traditions, and that
during her visits to Bellomont she regularly accompanied Muriel
and Hilda to church. This tallied with the assurance, also
confidentially imparted, that, never having played bridge
before, she had been "dragged into it" on the night of her
arrival, and had lost an appalling amount of money in
consequence of her ignorance of the game and of the rules of
betting. Mr. Gryce was undoubtedly enjoying Bellomont. He liked
the ease and glitter of the life, and the lustre conferred on him
by being a member of this group of rich and conspicuous people.
But he thought it a very materialistic society; there were times
when he was frightened by the talk of the men and the looks of
the ladies, and he was glad to find that Miss Bart, for all her
ease and self-possession, was not at home in so ambiguous an
atmosphere. For this reason he had been especially pleased to
learn that she would, as usual, attend the young Trenors
to church on Sunday morning; and as he paced the gravel sweep
before the door, his light overcoat on his arm and his
prayer-book in one carefully-gloved hand, he reflected agreeably
on the strength of character which kept her true to her early
training in surroundings so subversive to religious principles.
For a long time Mr. Gryce and the omnibus had the gravel sweep to
themselves; but, far from regretting this deplorable indifference
on the part of the other guests, he found himself nourishing the
hope that Miss Bart might be unaccompanied. The precious minutes
were flying, however; the big chestnuts pawed the ground and
flecked their impatient sides with foam; the coachman seemed to
be slowly petrifying on the box, and the groom on the doorstep;
and still the lady did not come. Suddenly, however, there was a
sound of voices and a rustle of skirts in the doorway, and Mr.
Gryce, restoring his watch to his pocket, turned with a nervous
start; but it was only to find himself handing Mrs. Wetherall
into the carriage.
The Wetheralls always went to church. They belonged to the vast
group of human automata who go through life without neglecting to
perform a single one of the gestures executed by the surrounding
puppets. It is true that the Bellomont puppets did not go to
church; but others equally important did--and Mr. and Mrs.
Wetherall's circle was so large that God was included in their
visiting-list. They appeared, therefore, punctual and resigned,
with the air of people bound for a dull "At Home," and after them
Hilda and Muriel straggled, yawning and pinning each other's
veils and ribbons as they came. They had promised Lily to go to
church with her, they declared, and Lily was such a dear old duck
that they didn't mind doing it to please her, though they
couldn't fancy what had put the idea in her head, and though for
their own part they would much rather have played lawn tennis
with Jack and Gwen, if she hadn't told them she was coming. The
Misses Trenor were followed by Lady Cressida Raith, a
weather-beaten person in Liberty silk and ethnological trinkets,
who, on seeing the omnibus, expressed her surprise that they were
not to walk across the park; but at Mrs. Wetherall's horrified
protest that the church was a mile away, her ladyship,
after a glance at the height of the other's heels, acquiesced in
the necessity of driving, and poor Mr. Gryce found himself
rolling off between four ladies for whose spiritual welfare he
felt not the least concern.
It might have afforded him some consolation could he have known
that Miss Bart had really meant to go to church. She had even
risen earlier than usual in the execution of her purpose. She had
an idea that the sight of her in a grey gown of devotional cut,
with her famous lashes drooped above a prayer-book, would put the
finishing touch to Mr. Gryce's subjugation, and render inevitable
a certain incident which she had resolved should form a part of
the walk they were to take together after luncheon. Her
intentions in short had never been more definite; but poor Lily,
for all the hard glaze of her exterior, was inwardly as malleable
as wax. Her faculty for adapting herself, for entering into other
people's feelings, if it served her now and then in small
contingencies, hampered her in the decisive moments of life. She
was like a water-plant in the flux of the tides, and today the
whole current of her mood was carrying her toward Lawrence
Selden. Why had he come? Was it to see herself or Bertha Dorset?
It was the last question which, at that moment, should have
engaged her. She might better have contented herself with
thinking that he had simply responded to the despairing summons
of his hostess, anxious to interpose him between herself and the
ill-humour of Mrs. Dorset. But Lily had not rested till she
learned from Mrs. Trenor that Selden had come of his own accord.
"He didn't even wire me--he just happened to find the trap at the
station. Perhaps it's not over with Bertha after all," Mrs.
Trenor musingly concluded; and went away to arrange her
dinner-cards accordingly.
Perhaps it was not, Lily reflected; but it should be soon, unless
she had lost her cunning. If Selden had come at Mrs. Dorset's
call, it was at her own that he would stay. So much the previous
evening had told her. Mrs. Trenor, true to her simple principle
of making her married friends happy, had placed Selden and Mrs.
Dorset next to each other at dinner; but, in obedience to the
time-honoured traditions of the match-maker, she had separated
Lily and Mr. Gryce, sending in the former with George
Dorset, while Mr. Gryce was coupled with Gwen Van Osburgh.
