The House of Mirth (37 page)

The strangeness of entering as a suppliant the house where she had so long commanded increased Lily's desire to shorten the ordeal; and when Miss Stepney entered the darkened drawing-room, rustling with the best quality of crape, her visitor went straight to the point: would she be willing to advance the amount of the expected legacy?

Grace, in reply, wept and wondered at the request, bemoaned the inexorableness of the law, and was astonished that Lily had not realized the exact similarity of their position. Did she think that only the payment of the legacies had been delayed? Why, Miss Stepney herself had not received a penny of her inheritance, and was paying rent—yes, actually!—for the privilege of living in a house that belonged to her. She was sure it was not what poor dear cousin Julia would have wished—she had told the executors so to their faces; but they were inaccessible to reason, and there was nothing to do but to wait. Let Lily take example by her, and be patient; let them both remember how beautifully patient cousin Julia had always been.

Lily made a movement which showed her imperfect assimilation of this example. “But you will have everything, Grace; it would be easy for you to borrow ten times the amount I am asking for.”

“Borrow, easy for me to borrow?” Grace Stepney rose up before her in sable wrath. “Do you imagine for a moment that I would raise money on my expectations from cousin Julia when I know so well her unspeakable horror of every transaction of the sort? Why, Lily, if you must know the truth, it was the idea of your being in debt that brought on her illness—you remember, she had a slight attack before you sailed. Oh, I don't know the particulars, of course—I don't
want
to know them—but there were rumours about your affairs that made her most unhappy; no one could be with her without seeing that. I can't help it if you are offended by my telling you this now; if I can do anything to make you realize the folly of your course, and how deeply
she
disapproved of it, I shall feel it is the truest way of making up to you for her loss.”

I
t seemed to Lily, as Mrs. Peniston's door closed on her, that she was taking a final leave of her old life. The future stretched before her dull and bare as the deserted length of Fifth Avenue, and opportunities showed as meagrely as the few cabs trailing in quest of fares that did not come. The completeness of the analogy was, however, disturbed as she reached the side-walk by the rapid approach of a hansom which pulled up at sight of her.

From beneath its luggage-laden top she caught the wave of a signalling hand; and the next moment Mrs. Fisher, springing to the street, had folded her in a demonstrative embrace.

“My dear, you don't mean to say you're still in town? When I saw you the other day at Sherry's I didn't have time to ask—” She broke off, and added with a burst of frankness: “The truth is I was
horrid,
Lily, and I've wanted to tell you so ever since.”

“Oh—” Miss Bart protested, drawing back from her penitent clasp; but Mrs. Fisher went on with her usual directness: “Look here, Lily, don't let's beat about the bush; half the trouble in life is caused by pretending there isn't any. That's not my way, and I can only say I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself for following the other women's lead. But we'll talk of that by and by—tell me now where you're staying and what your plans are. I don't suppose you're keeping house in there with Grace Stepney, eh? And it struck me you might be rather at loose ends.”

In Lily's present mood there was no resisting the honest friendliness of this appeal, and she said with a smile: “I
am
at loose ends for the moment, but Gerty Farish is still in town and she's good enough to let me be with her whenever she can spare the time.”

Mrs. Fisher made a slight grimace. “H'm—that's a temperate joy. Oh, I know—Gerty's a trump, and worth all the rest of us put together; but à
la longue
you're used to a little higher seasoning, aren't you, dear? And besides, I suppose she'll be off herself before long—the first of August, you say? Well, look here, you can't spend your summer in town; we'll talk of that later too. But meanwhile, what do you say to putting a few things in a trunk and coming down with me to the Sam Gormers' to-night?”

And as Lily stared at the breathless suddenness of the suggestion, she continued with her easy laugh: “You don't know them and they don't know you; but that don't make a rap of difference. They've taken the Van Alstyne place at Roslyn, and I've got
carte blanche
to bring my friends down there—the more the merrier. They do things awfully well, and there's to be rather a jolly party there this week—” She broke off, checked by an undefinable change in Miss Bart's expression. “Oh, I don't mean
your
particular set, you know: rather a different crowd, but very good fun. The fact is, the Gormers have struck out on a line of their own; what they want is to have a good time, and to have it in their own way. They gave the other thing a few months' trial, under my distinguished auspices, and they were really doing extremely well—getting on a good deal faster than the Brys, just because they didn't care as much—but suddenly they decided that the whole business bored them and that what they wanted was a crowd they could really feel at home with. Rather original of them, don't you think so? Mattie Gormer
has
got aspirations still; women always have; but she's awfully easy-going, and Sam won't be bothered, and they both like to be the most important people in sight, so they've started a sort of continuous performance of their own, a kind of social Coney Island, where everybody is welcome who can make noise enough and doesn't put on airs.
I
think it's awfully good fun myself—some of the artistic set, you know, any pretty actress that's going, and so on. This week, for instance, they have Audrey Anstell, who made such a hit last spring in
The Winning of Winny
; and Paul Morpeth—he's painting Mattie Gormer; and the Dick Bellingers, and Kate Corby—well, every one you can think of who's jolly and makes a row. Now don't stand there with your nose in the air, my dear—it will be a good deal better than a broiling Sunday in town, and you'll find clever people as well as noisy ones. Morpeth, who admires Mattie enormously, always brings one or two of his set.”

Mrs. Fisher drew Lily toward the hansom with friendly authority. “Jump in now, there's a dear, and we'll drive round to your hotel and have your things packed, and then we'll have tea, and the two maids can meet us at the train.”

 

It was a good deal better than a broiling Sunday in town—of that no doubt remained to Lily as, reclining in the shade of a leafy veranda, she looked seaward across a stretch of greensward picturesquely dotted with groups of ladies in lace raiment and men in tennis flannels. The huge Van Alstyne house and its rambling dependencies were packed to their fullest capacity with the Gormers' week-end guests, who now, in the radiance of the Sunday forenoon, were dispersing themselves over the grounds in quest of the various distractions the place afforded: distractions ranging from tennis-courts to shooting-galleries, from bridge and whisky within doors to motors and steam-launches without. Lily had the odd sense of having been caught up into the crowd as carelessly as a passenger is gathered in by an express train. The blond and genial Mrs. Gormer might, indeed, have figured the conductor, calmly assigning seats to the rush of travellers, while Carry Fisher represented the porter pushing their bags into place, giving them their numbers for the dining-car, and warning them when their station was at hand. The train, meanwhile, had scarcely slackened speed; life whizzed on with a deafening rattle and roar, in which one traveller at least found a welcome refuge from the sound of her own thoughts.

The Gormer
milieu
represented a social outskirt which Lily had always fastidiously avoided; but it struck her, now that she was in it, as only a flamboyant copy of her own world, a caricature approximating the real thing as the “society play” approaches the manners of the drawing-room. The people about her were doing the same things as the Trenors, the Van Osburghs, and the Dorsets; the difference lay in a hundred shades of aspect and manner, from the pattern of the men's waistcoats to the inflexion of the women's voices. Everything was pitched in a higher key, and there was more of each thing: more noise, more colour, more champagne, more familiarity, but also greater good-nature, less rivalry, and a fresher capacity for enjoyment.

Miss Bart's arrival had been welcomed with an uncritical friendliness that first irritated her pride and then brought her to a sharp sense of her own situation—of the place in life which, for the moment, she must accept and make the best of. These people knew her story—of that her first long talk with Carry Fisher had left no doubt: she was publicly branded as the heroine of a “queer” episode; but instead of shrinking from her as her own friends had done, they received her without question into the easy promiscuity of their lives. They swallowed her past as easily as they did Miss Anstell's, and with no apparent sense of any difference in the size of the mouthful; all they asked was that she should—in her own way, for they recognized a diversity of gifts—contribute as much to the general amusement as that graceful actress, whose talents, when off the stage, were of the most varied order. Lily felt at once that any tendency to be “stuck-up,” to mark a sense of differences and distinctions, would be fatal to her continuance in the Gormer set. To be taken in on such terms—and into such a world!—was hard enough to the lingering pride in her; but she realized, with a pang of self-contempt, that to be excluded from it would, after all, be harder still. For almost at once she had felt the insidious charm of slipping back into a life where every material difficulty was smoothed away. The sudden escape from a stifling hotel in a dusty, deserted city to the space and luxury of a great country-house fanned by sea breezes had produced a state of moral lassitude agreeable enough after the nervous tension and physical discomfort of the past weeks. For the moment she must yield to the refreshment her senses craved; after that she would reconsider her situation and take counsel with her dignity. Her enjoyment of her surroundings was, indeed, tinged by the unpleasant consideration that she was accepting the hospitality and courting the approval of people she had disdained under other conditions. But she was growing less sensitive on such points: a hard glaze of indifference was fast forming over her delicacies and susceptibilities, and each concession to expediency hardened the surface a little more.

On the Monday, when the party disbanded with uproarious adieux, the return to town threw into stronger relief the charms of the life she was leaving. The other guests were dispersing to take up the same existence in a different setting: some at Newport, some at Bar Harbor, some in the elaborate rusticity of an Adirondack camp. Even Gerty Farish, who welcomed Lily's return with tender solicitude, would soon be preparing to join the aunt with whom she spent her summers on Lake George; only Lily herself remained without plan or purpose, stranded in a backwater of the great current of pleasure. But Carry Fisher, who had insisted on transporting her to her own house, where she herself was to perch for a day or two on the way to the Brys' camp, came to the rescue with a new suggestion.

“Look here, Lily, I'll tell you what it is: I want you to take my place with Mattie Gormer this summer. They're taking a party out to Alaska next month in their private car, and Mattie, who is the laziest woman alive, wants me to go with them and relieve her of the bother of arranging things; but the Brys want me too—oh, yes, we've made it up; didn't I tell you?—and, to put it frankly, though I like the Gormers best, there's more profit for me in the Brys. The fact is, they want to try Newport this summer, and if I can make it a success for them, they—well, they'll make it a success for
me.
” Mrs. Fisher clasped her hands enthusiastically. “Do you know, Lily, the more I think of my idea the better I like it, quite as much for you as for myself. The Gormers have both taken a tremendous fancy to you, and the trip to Alaska is—well—the very thing I should want for you just at present.”

Miss Bart lifted her eyes with a keen glance. “To take me out of my friends' way, you mean?” she said quietly; and Mrs. Fisher responded with a deprecating kiss: “To keep you out of their sight till they realize how much they miss you.”

 

Miss Bart went with the Gormers to Alaska; and the expedition, if it did not produce the effect anticipated by her friend, had at least the negative advantage of removing her from the fiery centre of criticism and discussion. Gerty Farish had opposed the plan with all the energy of her somewhat inarticulate nature. She had even offered to give up her visit to Lake George and remain in town with Miss Bart if the latter would renounce her journey, but Lily could disguise her real distaste for this plan under a sufficiently valid reason.

“You dear innocent, don't you see,” she protested, “that Carry is quite right, and that I must take up my usual life and go about among people as much as possible? If my old friends choose to believe lies about me I shall have to make new ones, that's all; and you know beggars mustn't be choosers. Not that I don't like Mattie Gormer—I
do
like her: she's kind and honest and unaffected; and don't you suppose I feel grateful to her for making me welcome at a time when, as you've yourself seen, my own family have unanimously washed their hands of me?”

Gerty shook her head, mutely unconvinced. She felt not only that Lily was cheapening herself by making use of an intimacy she would never have cultivated from choice, but that in drifting back now to her former manner of life she was forfeiting her last chance of ever escaping from it. Gerty had but an obscure conception of what Lily's actual experience had been, but its consequences had established a lasting hold on her pity since the memorable night when she had offered up her own secret hope to her friend's extremity. To characters like Gerty's, such a sacrifice constitutes a moral claim on the part of the person in whose behalf it has been made. Having once helped Lily, she must continue to help her; and helping her, must believe in her, because faith is the main-spring of such natures. But even if Miss Bart, after her renewed taste of the amenities of life, could have returned to the barrenness of a New York August, mitigated only by poor Gerty's presence, her worldly wisdom would have counselled her against such an act of abnegation. She knew that Carry Fisher was right: that an opportune absence might be the first step toward rehabilitation and that, at any rate, to linger on in town out of season was a fatal admission of defeat.