A wave of indignation swept over Lily. She felt herself in the
presence of something vile, as yet but dimly conjectured--the
kind of vileness of which people whispered, but which she had
never thought of as touching her own life. She drew back with a
motion of disgust, but her withdrawal was checked by a sudden
discovery: under the glare of Mrs. Peniston's chandelier she had
recognized the hand-writing of the letter. It was a large
disjointed hand, with a flourish of masculinity which but
slightly disguised its rambling weakness, and the words, scrawled
in heavy ink on pale-tinted note
paper, smote on Lily's
ear as though she had heard them spoken.
At first she did not grasp the full import of the situation. She
understood only that before her lay a letter written by Bertha
Dorset, and addressed, presumably, to Lawrence Selden. There was
no date, but the blackness of the ink proved the writing to be
comparatively recent. The packet in Mrs. Haffen's hand doubtless
contained more letters of the same kind--a dozen, Lily
conjectured from its thickness. The letter before her was short,
but its few words, which had leapt into her brain before she was
conscious of reading them, told a long history--a history over
which, for the last four years, the friends of the writer had
smiled and shrugged, viewing it merely as one among the countless
"good situations" of the mundane comedy. Now the other side
presented itself to Lily, the volcanic nether side of the surface
over which conjecture and innuendo glide so lightly till the
first fissure turns their whisper to a shriek. Lily knew that
there is nothing society resents so much as having given its
protection to those who have not known how to profit by it: it is
for having betrayed its connivance that the body social punishes
the offender who is found out. And in this case there was no
doubt of the issue. The code of Lily's world decreed that a
woman's husband should be the only judge of her conduct: she was
technically above suspicion while she had the shelter of his
approval, or even of his indifference. But with a man of George
Dorset's temper there could be no thought of condonation--the
possessor of his wife's letters could overthrow with a touch the
whole structure of her existence. And into what hands Bertha
Dorset's secret had been delivered! For a moment the irony of the
coincidence tinged Lily's disgust with a confused sense of
triumph. But the disgust prevailed--all her instinctive
resistances, of taste, of training, of blind inherited scruples,
rose against the other feeling. Her strongest sense was one of
personal contamination.
She moved away, as though to put as much distance as possible
between herself and her visitor. "I know nothing of these
letters," she said; "I have no idea why you have brought them
here.
"Mrs. Haffen faced her steadily. "I'll tell you why, Miss.
I brought 'em to you to sell, because I ain't got no other way
of raising money, and if we don't pay our rent by tomorrow night
we'll be put out. I never done anythin' of the kind before, and
if you'd speak to Mr. Selden or to Mr. Rosedale about getting
Haffen taken on again at the Benedick--I seen you talking to Mr.
Rosedale on the steps that day you come out of Mr. Selden's
rooms---"
The blood rushed to Lily's forehead. She understood now--Mrs.
Haffen supposed her to be the writer of the letters. In the first
leap of her anger she was about to ring and order the woman out;
but an obscure impulse restrained her. The mention of Selden's
name had started a new train of thought. Bertha Dorset's letters
were nothing to her--they might go where the current of chance
carried them! But Selden was inextricably involved in their fate.
Men do not, at worst, suffer much from such exposure; and in this
instance the flash of divination which had carried the meaning of
the letters to Lily's brain had revealed also that they were
appeals--repeated and therefore probably unanswered--for the
renewal of a tie which time had evidently relaxed. Nevertheless,
the fact that the correspondence had been allowed to fall into
strange hands would convict Selden of negligence in a matter
where the world holds it least pardonable; and there were graver
risks to consider where a man of Dorset's ticklish balance was
concerned.
If she weighed all these things it was unconsciously: she was
aware only of feeling that Selden would wish the letters rescued,
and that therefore she must obtain possession of them. Beyond
that her mind did not travel. She had, indeed, a quick vision of
returning the packet to Bertha Dorset, and of the opportunities
the restitution offered; but this thought lit up abysses from
which she shrank back ashamed.
Meanwhile Mrs. Haffen, prompt to perceive her hesitation, had
already opened the packet and ranged its contents on the table.
All the letters had been pieced together with strips of thin
paper. Some were in small fragments, the others merely tom in
half. Though there were not many, thus spread out they nearly
covered the table. Lily's glance fell on a word here and
there--then she said in a low voice: "What do you wish me to pay
you?"
Mrs. Haffen's face reddened with satisfaction. It was clear that
the young lady was badly frightened, and Mrs. Haffen was the
woman to make the most of such fears. Anticipating an easier
victory than she had foreseen, she named an exorbitant sum.
But Miss Bart showed herself a less ready prey than might have
been expected from her imprudent opening. She refused to pay the
price named, and after a moment's hesitation, met it by a
counter-offer of half the amount.
Mrs. Haffen immediately stiffened. Her hand travelled toward the
outspread letters, and folding them slowly, she made as though to
restore them to their wrapping.
"I guess they're worth more to you than to me, Miss, but the poor
has got to live as well as the rich," she observed sententiously.
Lily was throbbing with fear, but the insinuation fortified her
resistance.
"You are mistaken," she said indifferently. "I have offered all I
am willing to give for the letters; but there may be other ways
of getting them."
Mrs. Haffen raised a suspicious glance: she was too experienced
not to know that the traffic she was engaged in had perils as
great as its rewards, and she had a vision of the elaborate
machinery of revenge which a word of this commanding young lady's
might set in motion.
She applied the corner of her shawl to her eyes, and murmured
through it that no good came of bearing too hard on the poor, but
that for her part she had never been mixed up in such a business
before, and that on her honour as a Christian all she and Haffen
had thought of was that the letters mustn't go any farther.
Lily stood motionless, keeping between herself and the char-woman
the greatest distance compatible with the need of speaking in low
tones. The idea of bargaining for the letters was intolerable to
her, but she knew that, if she appeared to weaken, Mrs. Haffen
would at once increase her original demand.
She could never afterward recall how long the duel lasted, or
what was the decisive stroke which finally, after a lapse of time
recorded in minutes by the clock, in hours by the pre
111>cipitate beat of her pulses, put her in possession of the
letters; she knew only that the door had finally closed, and that
she stood alone with the packet in her hand.
She had no idea of reading the letters; even to unfold Mrs.
Haffen's dirty newspaper would have seemed degrading. But what
did she intend to do with its contents? The recipient of the
letters had meant to destroy them, and it was her duty to carry
out his intention. She had no right to keep them--to do so was to
lessen whatever merit lay in having secured their possession. But
how destroy them so effectually that there should be no second
risk of their falling in such hands? Mrs. Peniston's icy
drawing-room grate shone with a forbidding lustre: the fire, like
the lamps, was never lit except when there was company.
Miss Bart was turning to carry the letters upstairs when she
heard the opening of the outer door, and her aunt entered the
drawing-room. Mrs. Peniston was a small plump woman, with a
colourless skin lined with trivial wrinkles. Her grey hair was
arranged with precision, and her clothes looked excessively new
and yet slightly old-fashioned. They were always black and
tightly fitting, with an expensive glitter: she was the kind of
woman who wore jet at breakfast. Lily had never seen her when she
was not cuirassed in shining black, with small tight boots, and
an air of being packed and ready to start; yet she never started.
She looked about the drawing-room with an expression of minute
scrutiny. "I saw a streak of light under one of the blinds as I
drove up: it's extraordinary that I can never teach that woman to
draw them down evenly."
Having corrected the irregularity, she seated herself on one of
the glossy purple arm-chairs; Mrs. Peniston always sat on a
chair, never in it.
Then she turned her glance to Miss Bart. "My dear, you look
tired; I suppose it's the excitement of the wedding. Cornelia Van
Alstyne was full of it: Molly was there, and Gerty Farish ran in
for a minute to tell us about it. I think it was odd, their
serving melons before the CONSOMME: a wedding breakfast should
always begin with CONSOMME. Molly didn't care for the
bridesmaids' dresses. She had it straight from Julia Melson that
they cost three hundred dollars apiece at Celeste's, but she says
they didn't look it. I'm glad you decided not to be a
bridesmaid; that shade of salmon-pink wouldn't have suited you."
Mrs. Peniston delighted in discussing the minutest details of
festivities in which she had not taken part. Nothing would have
induced her to undergo the exertion and fatigue of attending the
Van Osburgh wedding, but so great was her interest in the event
that, having heard two versions of it, she now prepared to
extract a third from her niece. Lily, however, had been
deplorably careless in noting the particulars of the
entertainment. She had failed to observe the colour of Mrs. Van
Osburgh's gown, and could not even say whether the old Van
Osburgh Sevres had been used at the bride's table: Mrs. Peniston,
in short, found that she was of more service as a listener than
as a narrator.
"Really, Lily, I don't see why you took the trouble to go to the
wedding, if you don't remember what happened or whom you saw
there. When I was a girl I used to keep the MENU of every dinner
I went to, and write the names of the people on the back; and I
never threw away my cotillion favours till after your uncle's
death, when it seemed unsuitable to have so many coloured things
about the house. I had a whole closet-full, I remember; and I can
tell to this day what balls I got them at. Molly Van Alstyne
reminds me of what I was at that age; it's wonderful how she
notices. She was able to tell her mother exactly how the
wedding-dress was cut, and we knew at once, from the fold in the
back, that it must have come from Paquin."
Mrs. Peniston rose abruptly, and, advancing to the ormolu clock
surmounted by a helmeted Minerva, which throned on the
chimney-piece between two malachite vases, passed her lace
handkerchief between the helmet and its visor.
"I knew it--the parlour-maid never dusts there!" she exclaimed,
triumphantly displaying a minute spot on the handkerchief; then,
reseating herself, she went on: "Molly thought Mrs. Dorset the
best-dressed woman at the wedding. I've no doubt her dress DID
cost more than any one else's, but I can't quite like the idea--a
combination of sable and POINT DE MILAN. It seems she goes to a
new man in Paris, who won't take an order till his client has
spent a day with him at his villa at Neuilly. He says he must
study his subject's home life--a most peculiar
arrangement, I should say! But Mrs. Dorset told Molly about it
herself: she said the villa was full of the most exquisite things
and she was really sorry to leave. Molly said she never saw her
looking better; she was in tremendous spirits, and said she had
made a match between Evie Van Osburgh and Percy Gryce. She really
seems to have a very good influence on young men. I hear she is
interesting herself now in that silly Silverton boy, who has had
his head turned by Carry Fisher, and has been gambling so
dreadfully. Well, as I was saying, Evie is really engaged: Mrs.
Dorset had her to stay with Percy Gryce, and managed it all, and
Grace Van Osburgh is in the seventh heaven--she had almost
despaired of marrying Evie."
Mrs. Peniston again paused, but this time her scrutiny addressed
itself, not to the furniture, but to her niece.
"Cornelia Van Alstyne was so surprised: she had heard that you
were to marry young Gryce. She saw the Wetheralls just after they
had stopped with you at Bellomont, and Alice Wetherall was quite
sure there was an engagement. She said that when Mr. Gryce left
unexpectedly one morning, they all thought he had rushed to town
for the ring."
Lily rose and moved toward the door.
"I believe I AM tired: I think I will go to bed," she said; and
Mrs. Peniston, suddenly distracted by the discovery that the
easel sustaining the late Mr. Peniston's crayon-portrait was not
exactly in line with the sofa in front of it, presented an
absent-minded brow to her kiss.
In her own room Lily turned up the gas-jet and glanced toward the
grate. It was as brilliantly polished as the one below, but here
at least she could burn a few papers with less risk of incurring
her aunt's disapproval. She made no immediate motion to do so,
however, but dropping into a chair looked wearily about her. Her
room was large and comfortably-furnished--it was the envy and
admiration of poor Grace Stepney, who boarded; but, contrasted
with the light tints and luxurious appointments of the
guest-rooms where so many weeks of Lily's existence were spent,
it seemed as dreary as a prison. The monumental wardrobe and
bedstead of black walnut had migrated from Mr. Peniston's
bedroom, and the magenta "flock" wall-paper, of a pattern dear to
the early 'sixties, was hung with large steel engravings
of an anecdotic character. Lily had tried to mitigate this
charmless background by a few frivolous touches, in the shape of
a lace-decked toilet table and a little painted desk surmounted
by photographs; but the futility of the attempt struck her as she
looked about the room. What a contrast to the subtle elegance of
the setting she had pictured for herself--an apartment which
should surpass the complicated luxury of her friends'
surroundings by the whole extent of that artistic sensibility
which made her feel herself their superior; in which every tint
and line should combine to enhance her beauty and give
distinction to her leisure! Once more the haunting sense of
physical ugliness was intensified by her mental depression, so
that each piece of the offending furniture seemed to thrust forth
its most aggressive angle.
Her aunt's words had told her nothing new; but they had revived
the vision of Bertha Dorset, smiling, flattered, victorious,
holding her up to ridicule by insinuations intelligible to every
member of their little group. The thought of the ridicule struck
deeper than any other sensation: Lily knew every turn of the
allusive jargon which could flay its victims without the shedding
of blood. Her cheek burned at the recollection, and she rose and
caught up the letters. She no longer meant to destroy them: that
intention had been effaced by the quick corrosion of Mrs.
Peniston's words.
Instead, she approached her desk, and lighting a taper, tied and
sealed the packet; then she opened the wardrobe, drew out a
despatch-box, and deposited the letters within it. As she did so,
it struck her with a flash of irony that she was indebted to Gus
Trenor for the means of buying them.
The autumn dragged on monotonously. Miss Bart had received one
or two notes from Judy Trenor, reproaching her for not returning
to Bellomont; but she replied evasively, alleging the obligation
to remain with her aunt. In truth, however, she was fast wearying
of her solitary existence with Mrs. Peniston, and only the
excitement of spending her newly-acquired money lightened the
dulness of the days.
All her life Lily had seen money go out as quickly as it came in,
and whatever theories she cultivated as to the prudence of
setting aside a part of her gains, she had unhappily no saving
vision of the risks of the opposite course. It was a keen
satisfaction to feel that, for a few months at least, she would
be independent of her friends' bounty, that she could show
herself abroad without wondering whether some penetrating eye
would detect in her dress the traces of Judy Trenor's refurbished
splendour. The fact that the money freed her temporarily from all
minor obligations obscured her sense of the greater one it
represented, and having never before known what it was to command
so large a sum, she lingered delectably over the amusement of
spending it.
It was on one of these occasions that, leaving a shop where she
had spent an hour of deliberation over a dressing-case of the
most complicated elegance, she ran across Miss Farish, who had
entered the same establishment with the modest object of having
her watch repaired. Lily was feeling unusually virtuous. She had
decided to defer the purchase of the dressing-case till she
should receive the bill for her new opera-cloak, and the resolve
made her feel much richer than when she had entered the shop. In
this mood of self-approval she had a sympathetic eye for others,
and she was struck by her friend's air of dejection.
Miss Farish, it appeared, had just left the committee-meeting of
a struggling charity in which she was interested. The object of
the association was to provide comfortable lodgings, with a
reading-room and other modest distractions, where young women of
the class employed in down town offices might find a home when
out of work, or in need of rest, and the first year's
financial report showed so deplorably small a balance that Miss
Farish, who was convinced of the urgency of the work, felt
proportionately discouraged by the small amount of interest it
aroused. The other-regarding sentiments had not been cultivated
in Lily, and she was often bored by the relation of her friend's
philanthropic efforts, but today her quick dramatizing fancy
seized on the contrast between her own situation and that
represented by some of Gerty's "cases." These were young girls,
like herself; some perhaps pretty, some not without a trace of
her finer sensibilities. She pictured herself leading such a life
as theirs--a life in which achievement seemed as squalid as
failure--and the vision made her shudder sympathetically. The
price of the dressing-case was still in her pocket; and drawing
out her little gold purse she slipped a liberal fraction of the
amount into Miss Farish's hand.
