 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit www.LibriVox.org. The Age of Innocence. A novel by Edith Wharton. Read for LibriVox by Brenda Dane. Chapter 1 On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nielsen was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York. Though there was already talk of the erection in remote metropolitan distances above the forties, of a new opera house which should compete in costliness and splendor with those of the great European capitals, the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old academy. Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient and thus keeping out the new people whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to. And the sentimental clung to it for its historic associations and the musical for its excellent acoustics, always so problematic a quality, in halls built for the hearing of music. It was Madame Nielsen's first appearance that winter and what the Daily Press had already learned to describe as an exceptionally brilliant audience had gathered to hear her transported through the slippery, snowy streets, in private brooms, in the spacious family landow, or in the humbler but more convenient brown coupé. To come to the opera in a brown coupé was almost as honorable a way of arriving as in one's own carriage and departure by the same means had the immense advantage of enabling one, with a playful allusion to democratic principles, to scramble into the first brown conveyance in the line instead of waiting until the cold and gin congested nose of one's own coachman gleamed under the portico of the academy. It was one of the great livery-stablemen's most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it. When Newland Archer opened the door at the back of the club box, the curtain had just gone up on the garden scene. There was no reason why the young man should not have come earlier, for he had dined at seven, alone with his mother and sister, and had lingered afterward over a cigar in the gothic library with glazed black walnut bookcases and finial topped chairs, which was the only room in the house where Mrs. Archer allowed smoking. But in the first place New York was a metropolis and perfectly aware that in metropolises it was not the thing to arrive early at the opera. And what was or was not the thing played a part as important in Newland Archer's New York as the inscrutable totem terrors that had ruled the destinies of his forefathers thousands of years ago. The second reason for his delay was a personal one. He had dawdled over his cigar because he was at heart a dilettante, and thinking over a pleasure to come often gave him a subtler satisfaction than its realization. This was especially the case when the pleasure was a delicate one, as his pleasures mostly were. And on this occasion the moment he looked forward to was so rare and exquisite in quality that, well, if he had timed his arrival in accord with the primadonna's stage manager, he could not have entered the academy at a more significant moment than just as she was singing, he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, and sprinkling the falling daisy petals with notes as clear as dew. She sang, of course, mamma, and not, he loves me. Since an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences. This seemed as natural to Newland Archer as all the other conventions on which his life was molded, such as the duty of using two silver-backed brushes with his monogram in blue enamel to part his hair and of never appearing in society without a flower, preferably a gardenia, in his buttonhole. Mamma, no mamma, the primadonna sang, and mamma with a final burst of love triumphant as she pressed the disheveled daisy to her lips and lifted her large eyes to the sophisticated countenance of the little brown Faust Capool, who was vainly trying in a tight purple velvet doublet and plumed cap to look as pure and true as his artless victim. Newland Archer, leaning against the wall at the back of the club box, turned his eyes from the stage and scanned the opposite side of the house. Directly facing him was the box of old Mrs. Manson Mingid whose monstrous obesity had long since made it impossible for her to attend the opera, but who was always represented on fashionable nights by some of the younger members of the family. On this occasion the front of the box was filled by her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Lovell Mingid, and her daughter, Mrs. Welland, and slightly withdrawn behind these brocaded matrons sat a young girl in white with eyes ecstatically fixed on the stage-lovers. As Madame Nielsen's mamma trilled out above the silent house, the boxes always stopped talking during the daisy song, a warm pink mounted to the girl's cheek, mantled her brow to the roots of her fair braids, and suffused the young slope of her breast to the line where it met a modest tool-tucker, fastened with a single gardenia. She dropped her eyes to the immense bouquet of lilies of the valley on her knee, and Nielsen Archer saw her white-gloved fingertips touch the flowers softly. He drew a breath of satisfied vanity, and his eyes returned to the stage. No expense had been spared on the setting, which was acknowledged to be very beautiful, even by people who shared his acquaintance with the opera houses of Paris and Vienna. The foreground, to the footlights, was covered with emerald green cloth. In the middle distance, symmetrical mounds of woolly green moss, bounded by croquet hoops, formed the base of shrubs, shaped like orange trees, but studded with large pink and red roses. Gigantic pansies, considerably larger than the roses, and closely resembling the floral pen wipers made by female parishioners for fashionable clergymen, sprang from the moss beneath the rose trees. And here and there, a daisy grafted on a rose branch, flowered with a luxuriant's prophetic of Mr. Luther Burbank's far-off prodigies. In the center of this enchanted garden, Madame Nielsen, in white cashmere slashed with pale blue satin, a reticule dangling from a blue girdle, and large yellow braids carefully disposed on each side of her muslin chemisette, listened with downcast eyes to Monsieur Cappool's impassioned wooing, and affected a guileless incomprehension of his designs whenever, by word or glance, he persuasively indicated the ground floor window of the neat brick villa projecting obliquely from the right wing. The darling, thought Newland archer, his glance flitting back to the young girl with the lilies of the valley. She doesn't even guess what it's all about. And he contemplated her absorbed young face with a thrill of possessorship in which pride in his own masculine initiation was mingled with a tender reverence for her abysmal purity. We'll read Faust together by the Italian lakes, he thought, somewhat hazily confusing the scene of his projected honeymoon with the masterpieces of literature, which it would be his manly privilege to reveal to his bride. It was only that afternoon that May Welland had let him guess that she cared. New York's consecrated phrase of maiden vowel, and already his imagination, leaping ahead of the engagement ring, the betrothal kiss, and the march from Lowengren, pictured her at his side in some scene of old European witchery. He did not, in the least wish the future Mrs. Newland archer to be a simpleton. He meant her, thanks to his enlightening companionship, to develop a social tact and readiness of wit enabling her to hold her own with the most popular married women of the younger set, in which it was the recognized custom to attract masculine homage while playfully discouraging it. If he had probed to the bottom of his vanity, as he sometimes nearly did, he would have found there the wish that his wife should be as worldly wise and as eager to please, as the married lady whose charms had held his fancy through two mildly agitated years. Without, of course, any hint of the frailty which had so nearly marred that unhappy being's life, and had disarranged his own plans for a whole winter. How this miracle of fire and ice was to be created, and to sustain itself in a harsh world, he had never taken the time to think out. But he was content to hold his view without analyzing it. Since he knew it was that of all the carefully brushed, white waist-coated, buttonhole-flowered gentlemen who succeeded each other in the club-box, exchanged friendly greetings with him, and turned their opera-glasses critically on the circle of ladies who were the product of their system. In matters intellectual and artistic, Newland Archer felt himself distinctly the superior of these chosen specimens of old New York gentility. He had probably read more, thought more, and even seen a good deal more of the world than any other man of the number. Singly, they betrayed their inferiority, but grouped together, they represented New York, and the habit of masculine solidarity made him accept their doctrine in all the issues called moral. He instinctively felt that in this respect it would be troublesome, and also rather bad form, to strike out for himself. Well, upon my soul exclaimed Lawrence Lefferts, turning his opera-glass abruptly away from the stage. Lawrence Lefferts was, on the whole, the foremost authority on form in New York. He had probably devoted more time than anyone else to the study of this intricate and fascinating question. But study alone could not account for his complete and easy competence. One had only to look at him from the slant of his bald forehead and the curve of his beautiful fair moustache to the long patent leather feet at the other end of his lean and elegant person to feel that the knowledge of form must be congenital in anyone who knew how to wear such good clothes so carelessly and carry such height with so much lounging grace. As a young admirer had once said of him, if anybody can tell a fellow just when to wear a black tie with evening clothes and when not to, it's Larry Lefferts. And on the question of bumps versus patent leather oxfords his authority had never been disputed. My God, he said, and silently handed his glass to old Sillerton Jackson. Newland Archer, following Lefferts' glance, saw with surprise that his exclamation had been occasioned by the entry of a new figure into old Mrs. Mingit's box. It was that of a slim young woman, a little less tall than May Welland, with brown hair growing in close curls about her temples and held in place by a narrow band of diamonds. The suggestion of this headdress, which gave her what was then called a Josephine look, was carried out in the cut of the dark blue velvet gown rather theatrically caught up under her bosom by a girdle with a large old-fashioned clasp. The wearer of this unusual dress, who seemed quite unconscious of the attention it was attracting, stood a moment in the center of the box discussing with Mrs. Welland the propriety of taking the latter's place in the front right-hand corner. Then she yielded with a slight smile and seated herself in line with Mrs. Welland's sister-in-law, Mrs. Lovell Mingit, who was installed in the opposite corner. Mr. Sillerton Jackson had returned the opera glass to Lawrence Lefferts. The whole of the club turned, instinctively, waiting to hear what the old man had to say, for old Mr. Jackson was as great an authority on family as Lawrence Lefferts was on form. He knew all the ramifications of New York's cousinships, and could not only elucidate such complicated questions as that of the connection between the Mingits, through the Thorleys, with the Dallases of South Carolina, and that of the relationship of the elder branch of the Philadelphia Thorleys to the Albany Chiverses, on no account to be confused with the Manson Chiverses of University Place, but could also enumerate the leading characteristics of each family, as, for instance, the fabulous stinginess of the younger lines of Lefferts's, the Long Island ones, or the fatal tendency of the Rushworths to make foolish matches, or the insanity recurring in every second generation of the Albany Chiverses, with whom their New York cousins had always refused to intermarry. With the disastrous exception of poor Medora Manson, who, as everybody knew, but then her mother was a Rushworth. In addition to this forest of family trees, Mr. Selerton Jackson carried between his narrow hollow temples, and under his soft thatch of silver hair, a register of most of the scandals and mysteries that had smoldered under the unruffled surface of New York society within the last fifty years. So far indeed did his information extend, and so acutely retentive was his memory, that he was supposed to be the only man who could have told you who Julius Beaufort the banker really was, and what had become of handsome Bob Spicer, old Mrs. Manson Mingott's father, who had disappeared so mysteriously with a large sum of trust money, less than a year after his marriage, on the very day that a beautiful Spanish dancer, who had been delighting thronged audiences in the opera house on the battery, had taken the ship for Cuba. But these mysteries, and many others, were closely locked in Mr. Jackson's breast, for not only did his keen sense of honour forbid his repeating anything privately imparted, but he was fully aware that his reputation for discretion increased his opportunities of finding out what he wanted to know. The club box, therefore, waited, invisible suspense, while Mr. Sillerton Jackson handed back Lawrence Leffert's opera glass. For a moment he silently scrutinised the attentive group out of his filmy blue eyes overhung by old veined lids. Then he gave his mustache a thoughtful twist, and said simply, I didn't think the Mingots would have tried it on. End of chapter 1 By Brenda Dane Chapter 2 Newland Archer, during this brief episode had been thrown into a state of embarrassment. It was annoying that the box which was thus attracting the undivided attention of masculine New York, should be that in which his betrothed was seated between her mother and aunt. And for a moment he could not identify the lady in the empire dress, nor imagine why her presence created such excitement among the initiated. Then light dawned on him, and with it came a momentary rush of indignation. No indeed. No one would have thought the Mingots would have tried it on. But they had. They undoubtedly had. For the low-toned comments behind him left no doubt in Archer's mind that the young woman was Mae Welland's cousin. The cousin always referred to in the family as poor Ellen Olenska. Archer knew that she had suddenly arrived from Europe a day or two previously. He had even heard from Miss Welland, not disapprovingly, that she had been to see poor Ellen, who was staying with old Mrs. Mingot. Archer entirely approved of family solidarity, and one of the qualities he most admired in the Mingots was their resolute championship of the few black sheep that their blameless stalk had produced. There was nothing mean or ungenerous in a young man's heart, and he was glad that his future wife should not be restrained by false prudery from being kind in private to her unhappy cousin. But to receive Countess Olenska in the family circle was a different thing from producing her in public at the opera of all places and in the very box with the young girl whose engagement to him, Newland Archer, was to be announced within a few weeks. No, he felt as old Sillerton Jackson felt. He did not think the Mingots would have tried it on. He knew, of course, that whatever man dared, within Fifth Avenue's limits, that old Mrs. Manson Mingot, the matriarch of the line, would dare. He had always admired the high and mighty old lady who, in spite of having been only Catherine Spicer of Staten Island, with a father mysteriously discredited and neither money nor position enough to make people forget it, had allied herself with the head of the wealthy Mingot line, married two of her daughters to foreigners, an Italian marquee and an English banker, and put the crowning touch to her audacities by building a large house of pale, cream-coloured stone, when brown sandstone seemed as much the only wear as a frock coat in the afternoon, in an inaccessible wilderness near the central park. Old Mrs. Mingot's foreign daughters had become a legend. They never came back to see their mother and the latter being, like many persons of active mind and dominating will, sedentary and corpulent in her habit, had philosophically remained at home. But the cream-coloured house, supposed to be modelled on the private hotels of the Parisian aristocracy, was there as a visible proof of her moral courage and she thrown in it among pre-revolutionary furniture and souvenirs of the Tuileries of Louis-Napoleon where she had shown in her middle age as placidly as if there were nothing peculiar in living above 34th Street or in having French windows that opened like doors instead of sashes that pushed up. Everyone, including Mr. Sillerton Jackson, was agreed that Old Catherine had never had beauty, a gift which, in the eyes of New York, justified every success and excused a certain number of failings. Unkind people said that, like her imperial namesake, she had won her way to success by strength of will and hardness of heart and a kind of haughty effrontery that was somehow justified by the extreme decency and dignity of her private life. Mr. Manson Mingid had died when she was only twenty-eight and had tied up the money with an additional caution born of the general distrust of the Spicers. But his bold young widow went her way fearlessly, mingled freely in foreign society, and her daughters in heaven knew what corrupt and fashionable circles, hobnobbed with dukes and ambassadors, associated familiarly with papists, entertained opera singers and—and—was the intimate friend of Madame Taglioni. And all the while, as Sillerton Jackson was the first to proclaim, there had never been a breath on her reputation. The only respect, he always added, in which she differed from the earlier Catherine. Mrs. Manson Mingid had long since succeeded in untieing her husband's fortune and had lived in affluence for half a century. But memories of her early straits had made her excessively thrifty, and though when she bought a dress or a piece of furniture she took care that it should be of the best, she could not bring herself to spend much on the transient pleasures of the table. Therefore, for totally different reasons her food was as poor as Mrs. Archer's, and her wines did nothing to redeem it. Her relatives considered that the penury of her table discredited the Mingid name, which had always been associated with good living. But people continued to come to her in spite of the made dishes and flat champagne, and in reply to the remonstrances of her son Lovell, who tried to retrieve the family credit by having the best chef in New York, she used to say laughingly, What's the use of two good cooks in one family, now that I've married the girls and can't eat sauces? Newland Archer, as he mused on these things, had once more turned his eyes towards the Mingid box. He saw that Mrs. Welland and her sister-in-law were facing their semicircle of critics with the Mingotian aplomb which old Catherine had inculcated in all her tribe, and that only May Welland betrayed by a heightened colour, perhaps due to the knowledge that he was watching her, a sense of the gravity of the situation. As for the cause of the commotion, she sat gracefully in her corner of the box, her eyes fixed on the stage and revealing, as she leaned forward, a little more shoulder and bosom than New York was accustomed to seeing. At least in ladies who had reasons for wishing to pass unnoticed, few things seemed to Newland Archer more awful than an offence against taste, that far-off divinity of whom form was the mere visible representative and vice-gerent. Madame Olenska's pale and serious face appealed to his fancy as suited to the occasion and to her unhappy situation. But the way her dress, which had no tucker, sloped away from her thin shoulders, shocked and troubled him. He hated to think of May Welland being exposed to the influence of a young woman so careless to the dictates of taste. After all, he heard one of the younger men begin behind him. Everybody talked through the Mephistopheles and Martha scenes. After all, just what happened? Well, she left him. Nobody attempts to deny that. He's an awful brute, isn't he? Continued the young inquirer, a candid Thorly, who was evidently preparing to enter the lists as the ladies' champion. The very worst, I knew him at Nice, said Lawrence Lefferts with authority. A half-paralysed white sneering fellow, rather handsome head but eyes with a lot of lashes. Well, I'll tell you of a sort. When he wasn't with women, he was... collecting china. Paying any price for both, I understand. There was a general laugh, and the young champion said, Well, then... Well, then she bolted with his secretary. Oh, I see. The champion's face fell. It didn't last long, though. I heard of her a few months later living alone in Venice. I believe Lovell Mingott went out to get her. He said she was desperately unhappy. That's all right, but this parading her at the opera's another thing. Perhaps, young Thorly hazarded, she's too unhappy to be left at home. This was greeted with an irreverent laugh, and the youth blushed deeply and tried to look as if he had meant to insinuate what knowing people called a double entendre. Well, it's queer to have brought Miss Welland anyhow, someone said in a low tone, with a sight glance at Archer. Oh, that's part of the campaign. Granny's orders, no doubt, Leffert's laughed. When the old lady does a thing, she does it thoroughly. The act was ending, and there was a general stir in the box. Suddenly Newland Archer felt himself impelled to decisive action. The desire to be the first man to enter Mrs. Mingott's box, to proclaim to the waiting world his engagement to May Welland, and to see her through whatever difficulties her cousin's anomalous situation might involve her in, this impulse had abruptly overruled all scruples and hesitations and sent him hurrying through the red corridors to the farther side of the house. As he entered the box, his eyes met Miss Welland's, and he saw that she had instantly understood his motive, though the family dignity which both considered so high a virtue would not permit her to tell him so. The persons of their world lived in an atmosphere of faint implications and pale delicacies, and the fact that he and she understood each other without a word seemed to a young man to bring them nearer than any explanation would have done. Her eyes said, You see why mama brought me. And his answered, I would not for the world have had you stay away. You know my niece, Countess Olenska, Mrs. Welland inquired as she shook hands with her future son-in-law. Archer bowed without extending his hand, as was the custom, on being introduced to a lady, and Ellen Olenska bent her head slightly, keeping her own pale-gloved hands clasped on her huge fan of eagle feathers. Having greeted Mrs. Lovell Mingott, a large blond lady in creaking satin, he sat down beside his betrothed and said in a low voice, I hope you've told Madam Olenska that we're engaged. I want everybody to know. I want you to let me announce it this evening at the ball. Mrs. Welland's face grew rosy as the dawn, and she looked at him with radiant eyes. If you can persuade mama, she said, But why should we change what is already settled? He made no answer, but that which his eyes returned, and she added, still more confidently smiling, Tell my cousin yourself, I give you leave. She says she used to play with you when you were children. She made way for him by pushing back her chair, and promptly, and a little ostentatiously, with a desire that the whole house should see what he was doing. Archer seated himself at the countess Olenska's side. We did used to play together, didn't we? She asked, turning her grave eyes to his. You were a horrid boy and kissed me once behind a door, but it was your cousin, Vandy Newland, who never looked at me, that I was in love with. Her glance swept the horseshoe curve of boxes. Ah, how this brings it all back to me! I see everybody here in knickerbockers and pantalettes, she said, with her trailing, slightly foreign accent, her eyes returning to his face. Agreeable as their expression was, the young man was shocked, that they should reflect, so unseemly a picture, of the August tribunal before which, at that very moment, her case was being tried. Nothing could be in worse taste than misplaced flippancy, and he answered somewhat stiffly, Yes, you have been away a very long time. Oh, centuries and centuries, so long, she said, that I'm sure I'm dead and buried, and this dear old place is heaven. Which, for reasons he could not define, struck Newland Archer as an even more disrespectful way of describing New York society. End of chapter 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit www.librivox.org The Age of Innocence A novel by Edith Wharton Read for LibriVox by Brenda Dane Chapter 3 It invariably happened in the same way. Mrs. Julius Beaufort, on the night of her annual ball, never failed to appear at the opera. Indeed, she always gave her ball on an opera night in order to emphasize her complete superiority to household cares and her possession of a staff of servants, competent to organize every detail of the entertainment in her absence. The Beaufort's house was one of the few in New York that possessed a ballroom. It even antedated Mrs. Manson Minkitz and the Headley Chiverses, and at a time when it was beginning to be thought provincial to put a crash over the drawing-room floor and move the furniture upstairs. The possession of a ballroom that was used for no other purpose and left for 364 days of the year to shuttered darkness with its gilt chairs stacked in a corner and its chandelier in a bag. This undoubted superiority was felt to compensate for whatever was regrettable in the Beaufort past. Mrs. Archer, who was fond of coining her social philosophy into axioms, had once said, We all have our pet common people. And though the phrase was a daring one, its truth was secretly admitted in many an exclusive bosom. But the Beauforts were not exactly common. Some people said they were even worse. Mrs. Beaufort belonged, indeed, to one of America's most honored families. She had been the lovely Regina Dallas of the South Carolina branch, a penniless beauty introduced to New York society by her cousin, the imprudent Medora Manson, who was always doing the wrong thing from the right motive. When one was related to the Mansons and Rushworths, one had a dwadi seat, as Mr. Sillerton Jackson, who had frequented the Tuileries, called it, in New York society. But did one not forfeit it in marrying Julius Beaufort? The question was, who was Beaufort? He passed for an Englishman, was agreeable, handsome, ill-tempered, hospitable and witty. He had come to America with letters of recommendation from old Mrs. Manson Minkett's English son-in-law, the banker, and had speedily made himself an important position in the world of affairs. But his habits were dissipated, his tongue was bitter, his antecedents were mysterious. And when Medora Manson announced her cousin's engagement to him, it was felt to be one more act of folly, in poor Medora's long record of imprudences. But folly is as often justified of her children as wisdom. And two years after young Mrs. Beaufort's marriage, it was admitted that she had the most distinguished house in New York. No one knew exactly how the miracle was accomplished. She was indolent, passive, the caustic even called her dull. But dressed like an idol, hung with pearls, growing younger and blonder and more beautiful each year, she throned in Mr. Beaufort's heavy brownstone palace and drew all the world there without lifting her jeweled little finger. The knowing people said it was Beaufort himself who trained the servants, taught the chef new dishes, told the gardeners what hot house flowers to grow for the dinner table and the drawing rooms, selected the guests, brewed the after-dinner punch, and dictated the little notes his wife wrote to her friends. If he did, these domestic activities were privately performed, and he presented to the world the appearance of a careless and hospitable millionaire strolling into his own drawing room with the detachment of an invited guest and saying, my wife's Glockcineas are a marvel, aren't they? I believe she gets them out from Q. Mr. Beaufort's secret, people were agreed, was the way he had carried things off. It was all very well to whisper that he had been helped to leave England by the international banking house in which he had been employed. He carried off that rumour as easily as the rest, though New York's business conscience was no less sensitive than its moral standard. He carried everything before him and all New York into his drawing rooms, and for over twenty years now people had said they were going to the Beauforts with the same tone of security as if they had said they were going to Mrs. Manson Mingates. And with the added satisfaction of knowing that they would get hot canvas-backed ducks and vintage wines, instead of tepid Vuf-Clicot without a year and warmed up croquettes from Philadelphia. Mrs. Beaufort, then, had as usual appeared in her box just before the jewel song. And when, again as usual, she rose at the end of the third act, drew her opera cloak about her lovely shoulders and disappeared, New York knew that meant that half an hour later the ball would begin. The Beaufort house was one that New Yorkers were proud to show foreigners, especially on the night of the annual ball. The Beauforts had been among the first people in New York to own their own red velvet carpet and have it rolled down the steps by their own footmen under their own awning, instead of hiring it with the supper and the ballroom chairs. They had also inaugurated the custom of letting the ladies take their cloaks off in the hall, instead of shuffling up to the hostess's bedroom and re-curling their hair with the aid of the gas burner. Beaufort was understood to have said that he supposed all his wife's friends had maids who saw to it that they were properly quaffed when they left home. Then the house had been boldly planned, with the ballroom, so that instead of squeezing through a narrow passage to get to it, as at the chiverses, one marched solemnly down a vista of enfilotted drawing-rooms, the sea-green, the crimson, and the bouton d'or. Seeing from afar the many candle-lusters reflected in the polished parketry, and beyond that the depths of a conservatory where camellias and tree ferns arched their costly foliage over seats of black and gold bamboo. Newland Archer, as became a young man of his position, distrolled in somewhat late. He had left his overcoat with the silk-stockinged footmen. The stockings were one of Beaufort's new fatuities. Had dawdled a while in the library hung with Spanish leather, and furnished with bull and malachite, where a few men were chatting and putting on their dancing-gloves, and had finally joined the line of guests as his Beaufort was receiving on the threshold of the crimson drawing-room. Archer was distinctly nervous. He had not gone back to his club after the opera, as the young bloods usually did, but the night being fine had walked for some distance up Fifth Avenue before turning back in the direction of the Beaufort's house. He was definitely afraid that the Mingates might be going too far, that, in fact, they might have Granny Mingates' orders to bring the Countess Olenska to the ball. From the tone of the club-box he had perceived how grave a mistake that would be, and though he was more than ever determined to see the thing through, he felt less chivalrously eager to champion his betrothed cousin than before their brief talk at the opera. Wandering on to the bouton-door drawing-room, where Beaufort had had the audacity to hang Love Victorious, the much-discussed nude of Beaujiroux, Archer found Mrs. Welland and her daughter standing near the ball-room door. Couples were already gliding over the floor beyond. The light of the wax candles fell on revolving tool skirts, on girlish heads wreathed with modest blossoms, on the dashing air-grettes and ornaments of the young married women's coiffures, and on the glitter of highly-glazed shirt-fronts and fresh glasset gloves. Mrs. Welland, evidently about to join the dancers, hung on the threshold. Her lilies of the valley in her hand, she carried no other bouquet. Her face a little pale, her eyes burning with a candid excitement. A group of young men and girls were gathered about her, and there was much hand-clasping, laughing and pleasantry, on which Mrs. Welland, standing slightly apart, shed the beam of a qualified approval. It was evident that Mrs. Welland was in the act of announcing her engagement, while her mother affected the air of parental reluctance, considered suitable to the occasion. Mrs. Welland paused a moment. It was at his express wish that the announcement had been made, and yet it was not thus that he would have wished to have his happiness known. To proclaim it in the heat and noise of a crowded ballroom was to rob it of the fine bloom of privacy, which should belong to things nearest the heart. His joy was so deep that his blurring of the surface left its essence untouched. But he would have liked to keep the surface pure too. It was something of a satisfaction to find that May Welland shared this feeling. Her eyes fled to his beseechingly, and their look said, Remember, we're doing this because it's right. No appeal could have found a more immediate response in Archer's breast, but he wished that the necessity of their action had been represented by some ideal reason, and not simply by poor Ellen Olenska. The group about Mrs. Welland made way for him with significant smiles, and after taking his share of the felicitations, he drew his betrothed into the middle of the ballroom floor and put his arm about her waist. Now we shan't have to talk, he said, smiling into her candid eyes as they floated away on the soft waves of the blue Danube. She made no answer. Her lips trembled into a smile, but the eyes remained distant and serious as if bent on some ineffable vision. Dear, Archer whispered, pressing her to him, born in on him that the first hours of being engaged, even if spent in a ballroom, had in them something grave and sacramental. What a new life it was going to be with this whiteness, radiance, goodness at one side. The dance over the two, as became an off-yanced couple, wandered into the conservatory and, sitting behind a tall screen of tree ferns and camellias, Newland pressed her gloved hand to his lips. You see, I did as you asked me to, she said. Yes, I couldn't wait, he answered, smiling. After a moment he added, only I wish it hadn't had to be at a ball. Yes, I know, she met his glance comprehendingly, but after all, even here we're alone together, aren't we? Oh, dearest always, Archer cried. Evidently she was always going to understand. She was always going to say the right thing. The discovery made the cup of his bliss overflow, and he went on gaily, the worst of it is that I want to kiss you and I can't. As he spoke, he took a swift glance about the conservatory, assured himself of their momentary privacy, and, catching her to him, laid a fugitive pressure on her lips. To counteract the audacity of this proceeding, he led her to a bamboo sofa in a less secluded part of the conservatory, and, sitting down beside her, broke a lily of the valley away from her bouquet. She sat silent, and the world lay like a sunlit valley at their feet. Did you tell my cousin, Ellen? She asked presently, as if she spoke through a dream. He roused himself and remembered that he had not done so. Some invincible repugnance to speak of such things to the strange foreign woman had checked the words on his lips. No, I haven't the chance, after all, he said, fibbing hastily. Ah! she looked disappointed, but gently resolved on gaining her point. You must, then, for I didn't either, and I shouldn't like her to think, of course not. But aren't you, after all, the person to do it? She pondered on this. If I'd done it at the right time, yes. But now that there's been a delay, I think you must explain that I'd asked you to tell her at the opera, before our speaking about it to everybody here. Otherwise, she might think I had forgotten her. You see, she's one of the family, and she's been away so long that she's rather sensitive. Archer looked at her glowingly. Dear and great angel, of course I'll tell her. He glanced a trifle apprehensively around the crowded ballroom. But I haven't seen her yet. Has she come? No, at the last minute she decided not to. At the last minute, he echoed, betraying his surprise that she should ever have considered the alternative possible. Yes. She's awfully fond of dancing, the young woman answered simply. But suddenly she made up her mind that her dress wasn't smart enough for a ball, though we thought it so lovely, and so my aunt had to take her home. Oh, well, said Archer, with happy indifference. Nothing about his betrothed pleased him more than her resolute determination to carry to its utmost limit that ritual of ignoring the unpleasant in which they had both been brought up. She knows as well as I do, he reflected, the real reason of her cousin staying away. But I shall never let her see, by the least sign, that I am conscious of there being a shadow of a shade on poor Ellen Olenska's reputation. This is a LibriVox recording. Chapter 4 In the course of the next day the first of the usual betrothal visits were exchanged. The New York ritual was precise and inflexible in such matters, and in conformity with it Newland Archer went, first with his mother and sister, to call on Mrs. Welland, after which he and Mrs. Welland and May drove out to old Mrs. Manson Mingott's to receive that venerable ancestral's blessing. A visit to Mrs. Manson Mingott was always an amusing episode to the young man. The house in itself was already an historic document, though not, of course, as venerable as certain other old family houses in University Place and Lower Fifth Avenue. Those were of the purest, 1830, with a grim harmony of cabbage-rose garlanded carpets, wood consoles, round arched fireplaces with marble black mantles, and immense glazed bookcases of mahogany. Whereas old Mrs. Mingott, who had built her house later, had bodily cast out the massive furniture of her prime and mingled with the Mingott heirlooms the frivolous upholstery of the Second Empire. It was in her habit to sit in a window of the sitting-room on the ground floor, as if watching calmly, for life and fashion, to flow northward to her solitary doors. She seemed in no hurry to have them come, for her patience was equaled by her confidence. She was sure that, presently, the hoardings, the quarries, the one-story saloons, the wooden greenhouses and ragged gardens, and the rocks from which goats surveyed the scene, would vanish before the advances of residences as stately as her own, perhaps, for she was an impartial woman, even statelier. And that the cobblestones over which the old clattering omnibuses bumped would be replaced by smooth asphalt, such as people reported having seen in Paris. Meanwhile, as every one she cared to see came to her, and she could fill her rooms as easily as the Beauforts, and without adding a single item to the menu of her suppers. She did not suffer from her geographic isolation. The immense accretion of flesh, which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city, had changed her from a plump, active little woman with a neatly turned foot and ankle, into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon. She had accepted this submergence as philosophically as all her other trials, and now, in extreme old age, was rewarded by presenting to her mirror an almost unwrinkled expanse of firm pink and white flesh, in the centre of which the traces of a small face survived, as if awaiting excavation. A flight of smooth double-chins led down to the dizzy depths of a still snowy bosom veiled in snowy muslins that were held in place by a miniature portrait of the late Mr. Mingott. And around and below, wave after wave of black silk surged away over the edges of a capacious arm-chair, with two tiny white hands poised like gulls on the surface of the billows. The burden of Mrs. Manson Mingott's flesh had long since made it impossible for her to go up and down stairs, and with characteristic independence she had made her reception rooms upstairs and established herself, in flagrant violation of all the New York proprieties, on the ground floor of her house, so that as you sat in her sitting-room window with her, you caught, through a door that was always open and a looped-back yellow-damask portiere, the unexpected vista of a bedroom with a huge, low bed, upholstered like a sofa, and a toilet-table with frivolous lace flounces and a guilt-framed mirror. Her visitors were startled and fascinated by the foreignness of this arrangement, which recalled scenes in French fiction and architectural incentives to immorality such as the simple American had never dreamed of. That was how women with lovers lived in the wicked old societies in apartments with all the rooms on one floor and all the indecent propinquities that their novels described. It amused Newland Archer, who had secretly situated the love scenes of Monsieur de Camour in Mrs. Mingott's bedroom, to picture her blameless life led in this stage setting of adultery. But he said to himself with considerable admiration that if a lover had been what she had wanted, the intrepid woman would have had him too. To the general relief the Countess Olenska was not present in her grandmother's drawing-room during the visit of the betrothed couple. Mrs. Mingott said she had gone out, which, on a day of such glaring sunlight, and at the shopping-hour, seemed in itself an indelicate thing for a compromised woman to do. But at any rate it spared them the embarrassment of her presence and the faint shadow that her unhappy past might seem to shed on their radiant future. The visit went off successfully, as was to have been expected. Old Mrs. Mingott was delighted with the engagement which, being long foreseen by watchful relatives, had been carefully passed upon in family council. And the engagement ring, a large, thick sapphire, set in invisible claws, met with her unqualified admiration. It's the new setting. Of course it shows the stone beautifully, but it looks a little bare to old-fashioned eyes, Mrs. Welland had explained, with a conciliatory side-glance at her future son-in-law. Old-fashioned eyes? I hope you don't mean mine, my dear. I like all the novelties, said the ancestors, lifting the stone to her small, bright orbs which no glasses had ever disfigured. Very handsome, she added, returning the jewel, very liberal. In my time a cameo set in pearls was thought sufficient, but it's the hand that sets off the ring, isn't it, my dear Mr. Archer? And she waved one of her tiny hands, with small, pointed nails, and rolls of aged fat encircling the wrist like ivory bracelets. Mine was modelled in Rome by the great Ferringiani. You should have maize done. No doubt he'll have it done, my child. Her hand is large. It's these modern sports that spread the joints, but the skin is white. And when's the wedding to be, she broke off fixing her eyes on Archer's face. Oh, Mrs. Welland murmured while the young man, smiling at his betrothed, replied, as soon as ever it can, if only you'll back me up, Mrs. Mingot. We must give them time to get to know each other a little better, Mama, Mrs. Welland interposed, with the proper affectation of reluctance. To which the ancestors rejoined, know each other, fiddle-sticks, everybody in New York has always known everybody. Let the young man have his way, my dear. Don't wait till the bubbles off the wine. Marry them before Lent. I may catch pneumonia any winter now, and I want to give the wedding breakfast. These successive statements were received with the proper expressions of amusement, incredulity, and gratitude. And the visit was breaking up in a vein of mild pleasantry when the door opened to admit the Countess Olenska, who entered in Bonnet and Mantle, followed by the unexpected figure of Julius Beaufort. There was a cousinly murmur of pleasure between the ladies, and Mrs. Mingot held out Ferringiani's model to the banker. Ah, Beaufort, this is a rare favour. She had an odd, foreign way of addressing men by their surnames. Thanks, I wish it might happen if an oftener said the visitor in his easy, arrogant way. I'm generally so tied down, but I met the Countess Ellen in Madison Square, and she was good enough to let me walk home with her. Ah, I hope the house will be gayer now that Ellen's here, cried Mrs. Mingot with glorious effrontery. Sit down, sit down, Beaufort. Push up the yellow arm chair. Now I've got you. I want a good gossip. I hear your ball was magnificent. And I understand you invited Mrs. Lemuel Struthers, well, I have a curiosity, to see the woman myself. She had forgotten her relatives, who were drifting out into the hall under Ellen Olenska's guidance. Old Mrs. Mingot had always professed a great admiration for Julius Beaufort, and there was a kind of kinship in their cool, domineering way, and their shortcuts through the conventions. Now she was eagerly curious to know what had decided the Beauforts to invite for the first time Mrs. Lemuel Struthers, the widow of Struthers' shoe polish, who had returned the previous year from a long initiatory sojourn to Europe, to lay siege to the tight little citadel of New York. Of course, if you and Regina invite her, the thing is settled. Well, we need new blood and new money, and I hear she's still very good-looking, the carnivorous old lady declared. In the hall, while Mrs. Welland and May drew on their furs, Archer saw that the Countess Olenska was looking at him with a faintly questioning smile. Of course you know already about May and me, he said. Answering her look with a shy laugh, she scolded me for not giving you the news last night at the opera. I had her orders to tell you that we were engaged, but I couldn't in that crowd. The smile passed from Countess Olenska's eyes to her lips. She looked younger, more like the bold, brown Ellen Mingott of his boyhood. Of course I know, yes, and I'm so glad, but one doesn't tell such things first in a crowd. The ladies were on the threshold, and she held out her hand. Good-bye. Come and see me some day, she said, still looking at Archer. In the carriage, on the way down Fifth Avenue, they talked pointedly of Mrs. Mingott, of her age, her spirit, and all her wonderful attributes. No one alluded to Ellen Olenska, but Archer knew that Mrs. Welland was thinking, it's a mistake for Ellen to be seen, the very day after her arrival, parading up Fifth Avenue at the crowded hours with Julius Beaufort, and the young man himself mentally added, and she ought to know that a man who's just engaged doesn't spend his time calling on married women. But I dare say it's the set she's lived in they do, they never do anything else. And in spite of the cosmopolitan views on which he prided himself, he thanked Heaven that he was a New Yorker, and about to ally himself with one of his own kind. End of Chapter 4 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit www.librivox.org The Age of Innocence a novel by Edith Wharton read for LibriVox by Brenda Dane. Chapter 5 The next evening old Mr. Sillerton Jackson came to dine with the Archers. Mrs. Archer was a shy woman and shrank from society. But she liked to be well informed as to its doings. Her old friend, Mr. Sillerton Jackson, applied to the investigation of his friend's affairs, the patience of a collector, and the science of a naturalist. And his sister, Miss Sophie Jackson, who lived with him and was entertained by all the people who were there to secure her much sought-after brother, brought home bits of minor gossip that filled in usefully the gaps in his picture. Therefore, whenever anything happened that Mrs. Archer wanted to know about, she asked Mr. Jackson to dine. And as she honored few people with her invitations, and as she and her daughter Janie were an excellent audience, Mr. Jackson usually came himself instead of sending his sister. If he could have dictated all the conditions, he would have chosen the evenings when Newland was out. Not because the young man was uncongenial to him. The two got on capitally, at the club. But because the old anecdotist sometimes felt, on Newland's part, a tendency to weigh his evidence that the ladies of the family never showed. Mr. Jackson, if perfection had been attainable on earth, would also have asked that Mrs. Archer's food should be a little better. But then New York, as far back as the mind of man could travel, had been divided into the two great fundamental groups of the Mingates and the Mansons and all their clan who cared about eating and clothes and money. And the Archer, Newland, the Lloyden tribe who were devoted to travel, horticulture and the best fiction and looked down on the grosser forms of pleasure. You couldn't have everything after all. If you dined with the level Mingates you got canvas back and terrapin and vintage wines. At Adelaide Archer's you could talk about Alpine scenery and the marble fawn and luckily Archer Madeira had gone round the Cape therefore when a friendly summons came from Mrs. Archer Mr. Jackson who was a true eclectic would usually say to his sister I've been a little gouty since my last dinner at the level Mingates it'll do me good to dine at Adelines. Mrs. Archer who had long been a widow lived with her son and daughter in West 28th Street an upper floor was dedicated to Newland and the two women squeezed themselves into narrower quarters below. In an unclouded harmony of tastes and interests they cultivated ferns in wardien cases made macrame lace and wool embroidery on linen collected American revolutionary glazed wear subscribed to good words and read Wita's novels for the sake of the Italian atmosphere they preferred those about peasant life because of the descriptions of scenery and the pleasanter sentiments though in general they liked novels about people in society whose motives and habits were more comprehensible spoke severely of Dickens who had never drawn a gentleman and considered factory less at home in the great world than Bollware who however was beginning to be thought old-fashioned Mrs. and Miss Archer were both great lovers of scenery it was what they principally sought and admired on their occasional travels abroad considering architecture and painting as subjects for men and chiefly for learned persons who read Ruskin Mrs. Archer had been born a Newland and mother and daughter who were as like as sisters were both, as people said true Newlands tall pale and slightly round shouldered with long noses sweet smiles and a kind of drooping distinction like that in certain faded Reynolds portraits their physical resemblance would have been complete if an elderly ombompois had not stretched Mrs. Archer's black brocade while Miss Archer's brown and purple poplans hung as the years went on more and more slackly on her virgin frame mentally the likeness between them as Newland was aware was less complete than their identical mannerisms often made it appear the long habit of living together in mutually dependent intimacy had given them the same vocabulary and the same habit of beginning their phrases mother thinks or Janey thinks according as one or the other wish to advance an opinion of her own but in reality while Mrs. Archer's serene unimaginativeness rested easily in the accepted and familiar Janey was subject to starts and aberrations of fancy welling up from springs of suppressed romance mother and daughter adored each other and revered their son and brother and Archer loved them with a tenderness made compunctious and uncritical by the sense of their exaggerated admiration and by his secret satisfaction in it after all he thought it a good thing for a man to have his authority respected in his own house even if his sense of humor sometimes made him question the force of his mandate on this occasion the young man was very sure that Mr. Jackson would rather have had him dine out but he had his own reasons for not doing so of course old Jackson wanted to talk about Ellen Olenska and of course Mrs. Archer and Janey wanted to hear what he had to tell all three would be slightly embarrassed by Newland's presence now that his perspective relation to the Mingit's clan had been made known and the young man waited with an amused curiosity to see how they would turn the difficulty they began obliquely by talking about Mrs. Lemuel Struthers it's a pity that Beaufort's asked her Mrs. Archer said gently but then Regina always does what he tells her and Beaufort certain nuances escape Beaufort said Mr. Jackson cautiously inspecting the broiled shad and wondering for the thousandth time why Mrs. Archer's cook always burnt the row to a cinder Newland who had long shared his wonder could always detect in it the older man's expression of melancholy disapproval oh, necessarily Beaufort is a vulgar man, said Mrs. Archer my grandfather Newland always used to say to my mother whatever you do don't let that fellow Beaufort be introduced to the girls but at least he's had the advantage of associating with gentlemen in England too, they say it's all very mysterious she glanced at Janie and paused she and Janie knew every fold of the Beaufort mystery but in public Mrs. Archer continued to assume that the subject was not one for the unmarried but this Mrs. Struthers Mrs. Archer continued what did you say she was Sillerton out of a mine or rather out of a saloon at the head of the pit and then living wax works touring New England after the police broke that up they say she lived Mr. Jackson in his turn glanced at Janie whose eyes began to bulge from under her prominent lids there were still hiatuses for her in Mrs. Struthers past then Mr. Jackson continued and Archer saw he was wondering why no one had told the butler never to slice cucumbers with a steel knife then Lemuel Struthers came along they say his advertiser used the girls head for the shoe polish posters her hair's intensely black you know the Egyptian style anyhow he eventually married her there were volumes of innuendo in the way the eventually was spaced and each syllable was given its due stress oh well at the past we've come to nowadays it doesn't matter said Mrs. Archer indifferently the ladies were not really interested in Mrs. Struthers just then the subject of Ellen Olenska was too fresh and too absorbing to them Archer's name had been introduced by Mrs. Archer only that she might presently be able to say and Newlands new cousin Countess Olenska was she at the ball too there was a faint touch of sarcasm in the reference to her son and Archer knew it and had expected it even Mrs. Archer who was seldom unduly pleased with human events had been altogether glad of her son's engagement especially after that silly business with Mrs. Rushworth as she had remarked to Janie alluding to what had once seemed to Newland a tragedy of which his soul would always bear the scar there was no better match in New York than May Welland look at the question from whatever point you chose of course such a marriage was only what Newland was entitled to but young men are so foolish and uncalculable and some women so ensnaring and unscrupulous that it was nothing short of a miracle to see one's only son safe past the siren isle and in the haven of a blameless domesticity all this Mrs. Archer felt and her son knew she felt but he knew also that she had been perturbed by the premature announcement of his engagement and the cause and it was for that reason because on the whole he was a tender and indulgent master that he stayed at home that evening it's not that I don't approve of the Mingitz esprit decor but why Newland's engagement should be mixed up with that Olenska woman's comings and goings I don't see Mrs. Archer grumbled to Janie the only witness of her slight lapses from perfect sweetness she had behaved beautifully and in beautiful behavior she was unsurpassed during the call on Mrs. Welland but Newland knew and his betrothed doubtless guest that all through the visit she and Janie were nervously on the watch for Madam Olenska's possible intrusion and when they left the house together she had permitted herself to say to her son I am thankful that Augusta Welland received us alone these indications of inward disturbance moved Archer the more that he too felt the Mingitz had gone a little too far but as it was against all the rules of their code that the mother and son should ever allude to what was uppermost in their thoughts he simply replied oh well there's always a phase of family parties to be gone through when one gets engaged and the sooner it's over the better at which his mother merely pursed her lips under valace veil that hung down from her gray velvet bonnet trimmed with frosted grapes her revenge, he felt her lawful revenge would be to draw Mr. Jackson that evening on the Countess Olenska and having publicly done his duty as a future member of the Mingit clan the young man had no objection to hearing the lady discussed in private except that the subject was already beginning to bore him Mr. Jackson had helped himself to a slice of the tepid filet which the mournful butler had handed him with a look as skeptical as his own and had rejected the mushroom sauce after a scarcely perceptible sniff he looked baffled and hungry and Archer reflected that he would probably finish his meal on Ellen Olenska Mr. Jackson leaned back in his chair and glanced up at the candlelit archers, Newlands and van der Leudens hanging in dark frames on the dark walls ah, how your grandfather Archer loved a good dinner my dear Newland he said his eyes on the portrait of a plump, full-chested young man in a stock and a blue coat with a view of a white-columned country house behind him well, well, well I wonder what he would have said to all these foreign marriages Mr. Archer ignored the illusion to the ancestral cuisine and Mr. Jackson continued with deliberation no, she was not at the ball ah, Mrs. Archer murmured in a tone that implied she had that decency perhaps the Beauforts don't know her Janey suggested with artless malice Mr. Jackson gave a faint sip as if he had been tasting invisible Madeira Mrs. Beaufort may not but Beaufort certainly does for she was seen walking up Fifth Avenue this afternoon with him by the whole of New York mercy! moaned Mrs. Archer evidently perceiving the uselessness of trying to ascribe the actions of foreigners to a sense of delicacy I wonder if she wears a round hat or a bonnet in the afternoon Janey speculated at the opera I know she had on a dark blue velvet perfectly plain and flat like a nightgown Janey said her mother and Mrs. Archer blushed and tried to look audacious it was at any rate in better taste not to go to the ball Mrs. Archer continued a spirit of perversity moved her son to rejoin I don't think it was a question of taste with her Mae said she meant to go and then decided that the dress in question wasn't smart enough Mrs. Archer smiled at this confirmation of her inference poor Ellen she simply remarked adding compassionately we must always bear in mind what an eccentric bring-up Madora Manson gave her what can you expect of a girl who was allowed to wear black satin at her coming out ball ah I don't remember her in it said Mr. Jackson adding poor girl in the tone of one who while enjoying the memory had fully understood at the time it's odd Janey remarked that she should have kept such an ugly name as Ellen I should have changed it to Elaine she glanced about the table to see the effect of this her brother laughed why Elaine I don't know it sounds more more Polish said Janey blushing it sounds more conspicuous and that can hardly be what she wishes said Mrs. Archer distantly why not broken her son growing suddenly argumentative why shouldn't she be conspicuous if she chooses why should she slink about as if it were she who had disgraced herself she's a poor Ellen certainly because she had the bad luck to make a wretched marriage but I don't see but that's a reason for hiding her head as if she were the culprit that I suppose Mr. Jackson speculatively is the line the mingots mean to take the young man reddened I don't have to wait for their cue if that's what you mean sir Madam Olenska has had an unhappy life that doesn't make her an outcast there are rumors began Mr. Jackson glancing at Janey oh I know the secretary the young man took him up nonsense mother Janey's a grown up they say don't they he went on that the secretary helped her to get away from her brute of a husband who kept her practically a prisoner they say don't they that the secretary helped her to get away from her brute of a husband who kept her practically a prisoner well what if he did I hope there isn't a man among us who wouldn't have done the same thing in such a case Mr. Jackson glanced over his shoulder to say to the sad little butler perhaps that sauce just a little after all then having helped himself he remarked I'm told she's looking for a house she means to live here I hear she means to get a divorce said Janey boldly I hope she will Archer exclaimed the word had fallen like a bombshell in the pure tranquil atmosphere of the Archer dining room Mrs. Archer raised her delicate eyebrows in the particular curve that signified the butler and the young man himself mindful of the bad taste in discussing such intimate manners in public hastily branched off into an account of his visit to old Mrs. Mingott after dinner according to immemorial custom Mrs. Archer and Janey trailed their long silk draperies up to the drawing room where while the gentlemen smoked below stairs they sat beside a car-cell lamp with an engraved globe facing each other across a rosewood work-table with a green silk bag under it and stitched at the two ends of the tapestry band of field-flowers destined to adorn an occasional chair in the drawing room of young Mrs. Newland Archer while this rite was in progress in the drawing room Archer settled Mr. Jackson in an armchair near the fire in the Gothic Library and handed him a cigar Mr. Jackson sank into the armchair with satisfaction lit his cigar with perfect confidence it was Newland who bought them and stretching his thin old ankles to the coals said you say the secretary merely helped her to get away my dear fellow well he was still helping her a year later then for somebody met him living at Lausanne together Newland reddened living together well why not who had the right to make her life over if she hadn't I am sick of the hypocrisy that would bury alive a woman of her age if her husband prefers to live with harlots he stopped and turned away angrily to light his cigar women ought to be free as free as we are he declared making a discovery of which he was too irritated to measure the terrific consequences Mr. Sillerton Jackson stretched his ankles near the coals and emitted a sardonic whistle well he said after a pause apparently Count Olensky takes your view for I never heard of his having lifted a finger to get his wife back end of chapter 5 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit www.LibriVox.org The Age of Innocence a novel by Edith Wharton read for LibriVox by Brenda Dane Chapter 6 that evening after Mr. Jackson had taken himself away and the ladies had retired to their chintz curtain bedroom Newland Archer mounted thoughtfully to his own study a vigilant hand had as usual kept the fire alive and the lamp trimmed and the room with its rows and rows of books its bronze and steel statuettes of the fencers on the mantelpiece and its many photographs of famous pictures looked home-like and welcoming as he dropped into his armchair near the fire his eyes rested on a large photograph of May Welland which the young girl had given him in the first days of their romance and which had now displaced all the other portraits on the table with a new sense of awe he looked at the Frank forehead surprised and gay innocent mouth of the young creature whose soul's custodian he was to be that terrifying product of a social system he belonged to and believed in the young girl who knew nothing and expected everything looked back at him like a stranger through May Welland's familiar features and once more it was born in on him a voyage was not the safe anchorage he had been taught to think but a voyage on uncharted seas the case of the Countess Olenska had stirred up old settled convictions and set them drifting dangerously through his mind his own exclamation women should be free as free as we are struck to the root of a problem that it was agreed in his world that it was an existent nice women however wronged would never claim the kind of freedom he meant and generous minded men like himself were therefore in the heat of argument the more chivalrously ready to concede it to them such verbal generosity were in fact only a humbugging disguise of the inexorable conventions that tied things together and led down to the old pattern but here he was pledged to defend on the part of his betrothed cousin conduct that on his own wife's part would justify him in calling down on her all the thunders of church and state of course the dilemma was purely hypothetical since he wasn't a placard polish nobleman it was absurd to speculate what his wife's rights would be if he were but newland archer was too imaginative not to feel that in his case and maize the tie might gall for reasons far less gross and palpable what could he and she really know of each other since it was his duty as a decent fellow to conceal his past from her and hers as a marriageable girl to conceal what if for some one of the subtler reasons that would tell with both of them they should tire of each other misunderstand or irritate each other he reviewed his friends' marriages the supposedly happy ones and saw none that answered even remotely to the passionate and tender comradeship which he pictured as his permanent relation with Mae Welland he perceived that such a picture presupposed on her part the experience, the versatility the freedom of judgment which she had been carefully trained not to possess and with a shiver of foreboding he saw his marriage becoming what most of the other marriages about him were a dull association of material and social interests held together by ignorance on the one side and hypocrisy on the other Lawrence Lefferts occurred to him as the husband who had most completely realized this enviable ideal as became the high priest of form he had formed a wife so completely to his own convenience that in the most conspicuous moments of his frequent love affairs with other men's wives she went about in smiling unconsciousness saying that Lawrence was so frightfully strict and had been known to blush indignantly and avert her gaze when someone alluded in her presence to the fact that Julius Beaufort as became a foreigner of doubtful origin had what was known in New York as another establishment Archer tried to console himself with the thought that he was not quite such an ass as Larry Lefferts such a simpleton as poor Gertrude but the difference was after all one of intelligence and not of standards in reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world where the real thing was never said or done or even thought but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs as when Mrs. Welland who knew exactly why Archer had pressed her to announce the engagement at the Beaufort Ball and had indeed expected him to do no less yet felt obliged to simulate reluctance and the air of having her hand forced quite as in the books on primitive man that people of advanced cultures were beginning to read the savage bride is dragged with shrieks from her parents' tent the result, of course was that the young girl who was the center of this elaborate system remained the more inscrutable for her very frankness and assurance she was frank, poor darling because she had nothing to conceal assured because she knew of nothing to be on her guard against and with no better preparation than this she was to be plunged overnight into what people evasively called the facts of life the young man was sincerely but placidly in love he delighted in the radiant good looks of his betrothed in her health, her horsemanship her grace and quickness at games and the shy interest in books and ideas that she was beginning to develop under his guidance she had advanced far enough to join him in ridiculing the idols of the king but not to feel the beauty of Ulysses and the lotus-eaters she was straightforward loyal and brave she had a sense of humor chiefly proved by her laughing at his jokes and he suspected in the depths of her innocently gazing soul a glow of feeling that it would be a joy to awaken but when he had gone the brief round of her he returned discouraged by the thought that all this frankness and innocence were only a product untrained human nature was not frank and innocent it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive guile and he felt himself oppressed by this creation of facetious purity so cunningly manufactured by conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long dead ancestors because it was supposed to be what he had a right to in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow there was a certain triteness in these reflections they were those habitual to young men on the approach of their wedding day but they were generally accompanied by a sense of compunction and self-abasement of which Newland archer felt no trace he could not explore as Thackeray's heroes so often exasperated him by doing that he had not a blank page to offer his bride in exchange for the unblemished one she was to give to him he could not get away from the fact that if he had been brought up as she had they would have been no more fit to find their way about than the babes in the wood nor could he for all his anxious cogitations connected with his own momentary pleasure and the passion of masculine vanity why his bride should not have been allowed the same freedom of experience as himself such questions at such an hour were bound to drift through his mind but he was conscious that their uncomfortable persistence and precision were due to the inopportune arrival of the Countess Olenska here he was at the very moment of his betrothal a moment for pure thoughts and cloudless hopes pitchforked into a coil of scandal which raised all the special problems he could have preferred to let lie hang Ellen Olenska he grumbled as he covered his fire and began to undress he could not really see why her fate should have the least bearing on his yet he dimly felt that he had only just begun to measure the risks of the championship which his engagement had forced upon him a few days later the bolt fell the Lovell Mingates had sent out cards for what was known as a formal dinner that is three extra footmen two dishes for each course and a Roman punch in the middle and had headed their invitations with the words to meet the Countess Olenska in accordance with the hospitable American fashion which treats strangers as if they were royalty or at least as their ambassadors the guests had been selected with a boldness and discrimination in which the initiated recognized the firm hand of Catherine the Great associated with such immemorial stand-bys as the Selfridge Marys who were asked everywhere because they always had been friends on whom there was a claim of relationship and Mr. Sillerton Jackson and his sister Sophie who went wherever her brother told her to were some of the most fashionable and yet most irreproachable of the dominant young married set the Lawrence Leffertsies Mrs. Lefferts Rushworth the lovely widow the Harry Thorleys the Reggie Chiverses and young Morris Dagonet and his wife who was a van der Leuten the company indeed was perfectly assorted since all the members belong to the little inner group of people who during the long New York season disported themselves together daily and nightly with apparently undiminished zest 48 hours later the unbelievable had happened everyone had refused the Mingitz invitation except the Beauforts and old Mr. Jackson and his sister the intended slight was emphasized by the fact that even the Reggie Chiverses who were of the Mingit clan were among those inflicting it and by the uniform wording of the notes in all of which the writers regretted that they were unable to accept without the mitigating plea of a previous engagement that ordinary courtesy prescribed New York society was in those days far too small and too scant in its resources for everyone in it including livery stablekeepers butlers and cooks not to know exactly on which evenings people were free and it was thus possible for the recipients of Mrs. Lovell Mingitz invitations to make cruelly clear their determination not the Countess Hulenska the blow was unexpected but the Mingitz as their way was met it gallantly Mrs. Lovell Mingitz confided the case to Mrs. Welland who confided it to Newland Archer who a flame at the outrage appealed passionately and authoritatively to his mother who after a painful period of inward resistance and outward temporizing succumbed to his incidences as she always did and immediately embracing his cause with an energy redoubled by her previous hesitations put on her gray velvet bonnet and said I'll go and see Louisa van der Leuten the New York of Newland Archer's day was a small and slippery pyramid in which as yet hardly a fissure had been made or a foothold gained at its base the foundation of what Mrs. Archer called plain people an honorable but obscure majority of respectable families who as in the case of the Spicers or the Lefferties or the Jacksons had been raised above their level by marriage with one of the ruling clans people Mrs. Archer always said were not as particular as they used to be and with old Catherine Spicer ruling one end of Fifth Avenue and Julius Beaufort the other you couldn't expect the old traditions to last much longer firmly narrowing upward from the wealthy but inconspicuous substratum was the compact and dominant group which the Mingates Newlands, Chiversies and Mansons so actively represented most people imagine them to be the very apex of the pyramid but they themselves at least those of Mrs. Archer's generation were aware that in the eyes of the professional genealogist only a still smaller number of families could claim that eminence don't tell me Mrs. Archer would say to her children all this modern newspaper rubbish about a New York aristocracy if there is one neither the Mingates nor the Mansons belong to it no, nor the Newlands families either our grandfathers and great grandfathers were just respectable English or Dutch merchants who came to the colonies to make their fortune and stayed because they did so well one of your grandfathers signed the declaration and another was a general on Washington staff these are things to be proud of but they have nothing to do with rank or class New York has always been a commercial community more than three families in it who can claim an aristocratic origin in the real sense of the word Mrs. Archer and her son and daughter like everyone else in New York knew who these privileged beings were the dagonettes of Washington Square who came of an old English county family allied with the pits and the foxes the landings who had intermarried with the descendants of Count de Grasse and the vandaloidens direct descendants of the first Dutch governor of Manhattan and related by pre-revolutionary marriages to several members of the French and British aristocracy the landings survived only in the person of two very old but lively Miss landings who lived cheerfully and reminiscently among family portraits and Chippendale the dagonettes were a considerable clan allied to the best names in Baltimore in Philadelphia but the vandaloidens who stood above all of them had faded into a kind of superterrestrial twilight from which only two figures impressively emerged those of Mr. and Mrs. Henry vandaloiden Mrs. Henry vandaloiden had been Louisa dagonette and her mother had been the grandmother of Colonel de Lac of the old Channel Island family who had fought under Cornwallis and had settled in Maryland after the war with his bride, Lady Angelica Trevenna fifth daughter of the Earl of St. Austrie the tie between the dagonettes the du laques of Maryland and their aristocratic Cornish kinfolk the Trevennes had always remained close and cordial Mr. and Mrs. vandaloiden had more than once paid long visits to the present head of the house of Trevenna the Duke of St. Austrie at his county seat in Cornwall and at St. Austrie in Gloucestershire and his grace had frequently announced his intention of someday returning their visit without the Duchess who feared the Atlantic Mr. and Mrs. vandaloiden divided their time between Trevenna their place in Maryland and their greatest state on the Hudson which had been one of the colonial grants of the Dutch government to the famous first governor and of which Mr. vandaloiden was still Patroen their large solemn house in Madison Avenue was seldom opened and when they came to town they received in it only their most intimate friends I wish you would go with me Newland his mother said suddenly pausing at the door of the Brown Coupe Louisa is fond of you and of course it's on account of Dear May that I'm taking this step and also because if we don't all stand together there'll be no such thing as society left End of chapter