The House of Mirth (8 page)

She was beginning to have fits of angry rebellion against fate, when she longed to drop out of the race and make an independent life for herself. But what manner of life would it be? She had barely enough money to pay her dress-makers' bills and her gambling debts; and none of the desultory interests which she dignified with the name of tastes was pronounced enough to enable her to live contentedly in obscurity. Ah, no—she was too intelligent not to be honest with herself. She knew that she hated dinginess as much as her mother had hated it, and to her last breath she meant to fight against it, dragging herself up again and again above its flood till she gained the bright pinnacles of success which presented such a slippery surface to her clutch.

T
he next morning, on her breakfast tray, Miss Bart found a note from her hostess.

“Dearest Lily,” it ran, “if it is not too much of a bore to be down by ten, will you come to my sitting-room to help me with some tiresome things?”

Lily tossed aside the note and subsided on her pillows with a sigh. It
was
a bore to be down by ten—an hour regarded at Bellomont as vaguely synchronous with sunrise—and she knew too well the nature of the tiresome things in question. Miss Pragg, the secretary, had been called away, and there would be notes and dinner-cards to write, lost addresses to hunt up, and other social drudgery to perform. It was understood that Miss Bart should fill the gap in such emergencies, and she usually recognized the obligation without a murmur.

Today, however, it renewed the sense of servitude which the previous night's review of her cheque-book had produced. Everything in her surroundings ministered to feelings of ease and amenity. The windows stood open to the sparkling freshness of the September morning, and between the yellow boughs she caught a perspective of hedges and parterres leading by degrees of lessening formality to the free undulations of the park. Her maid had kindled a little fire on the hearth, and it contended cheerfully with the sunlight which slanted across the moss-green carpet and caressed the curved sides of an old marquetry desk. Near the bed stood a table holding her breakfast-tray, with its harmonious porcelain and silver, a handful of violets in a slender glass, and the morning paper folded beneath her letters. There was nothing new to Lily in these tokens of a studied luxury; but though they formed a part of her atmosphere, she never lost her sensitiveness to their charm. Mere display left her with a sense of superior distinction but she felt an affinity to all the subtler manifestations of wealth.

Mrs. Trenor's summons, however, suddenly recalled her state of dependence and she rose and dressed in a mood of irritability that she was usually too prudent to indulge. She knew that such emotions leave lines on the face as well as in the character, and she had meant to take warning by the little creases which her midnight survey had revealed.

The matter-of-course tone of Mrs. Trenor's greeting deepened her irritation. If one did drag one's self out of bed at such an hour and come down fresh and radiant to the monotony of note-writing, some special recognition of the sacrifice seemed fitting. But Mrs. Trenor's tone showed no consciousness of the fact.

“Oh, Lily, that's nice of you,” she merely sighed across the chaos of letters, bills, and other domestic documents which gave an incongruously commercial touch to the slender elegance of her writing-table.

“There are such lots of horrors this morning,” she added, clearing a space in the centre of the confusion and rising to yield her seat to Miss Bart.

Mrs. Trenor was a tall, fair woman whose height just saved her from redundancy. Her rosy blondness had survived some forty years of futile activity without showing much trace of ill-usage except in a diminished play of feature. It was difficult to define her beyond saying that she seemed to exist only as a hostess, not so much from any exaggerated instinct of hospitality as because she could not sustain life except in a crowd. The collective nature of her interests exempted her from the ordinary rivalries of her sex, and she knew no more personal emotion than that of hatred for the woman who presumed to give bigger dinners or have more amusing house-parties than herself. As her social talents, backed by Mr. Trenor's bank-account, almost always assured her ultimate triumph in such competitions, success had developed in her an unscrupulous good nature toward the rest of her sex, and in Miss Bart's utilitarian classification of her friends, Mrs. Trenor ranked as the woman who was least likely to “go back” on her.

“It was simply inhuman of Pragg to go off now,” Mrs. Trenor declared as her friend seated herself at the desk. “She says her sister is going to have a baby—as if that were anything to having a house-party! I'm sure I shall get most horribly mixed up and there will be some awful rows. When I was down at Tuxedo I asked a lot of people for next week, and I've mislaid the list and can't remember who is coming. And this week is going to be a horrid failure too—and Gwen Van Osburgh will go back and tell her mother how bored people were. I didn't mean to ask the Wetheralls—that was a blunder of Gus's. They disapprove of Carry Fisher, you know. As if one could help having Carry Fisher! It
was
foolish of her to get that second divorce—Carry always overdoes things—but she said the only way to get a penny out of Fisher was to divorce him and make him pay alimony. And poor Carry has to consider every dollar. It's really absurd of Alice Wetherall to make such a fuss about meeting her when one thinks of what society is coming to. Some one said the other day that there was a divorce and a case of appendicitis in every family one knows. Besides, Carry is the only person who can keep Gus in a good humour when we have bores in the house. Have you noticed that
all
the husbands like her? All, I mean, except her own. It's rather clever of her to have made a specialty of devoting herself to dull people—the field is such a large one, and she has it practically to herself. She finds compensations, no doubt—I know she borrows money of Gus—but then I'd
pay
her to keep him in a good humour, so I can't complain, after all.”

Mrs. Trenor paused to enjoy the spectacle of Miss Bart's efforts to unravel her tangled correspondence.

“But it isn't only the Wetheralls and Carry,” she resumed with a fresh note of lament. “The truth is, I'm awfully disappointed in Lady Cressida Raith.”

“Disappointed? Hadn't you known her before?”

“Mercy, no—never saw her till yesterday. Lady Skiddaw sent her over with letters to the Van Osburghs, and I heard that Maria Van Osburgh was asking a big party to meet her this week, so I thought it would be fun to get her away, and Jack Stepney, who knew her in India, managed it for me. Maria was furious, and actually had the impudence to make Gwen invite herself here so that they shouldn't be
quite
out of it—if I'd known what Lady Cressida was like, they could have had her and welcome! But I thought any friend of the Skiddaws' was sure to be amusing. You remember what fun Lady Skiddaw was? There were times when I simply had to send the girls out of the room. Besides, Lady Cressida is the Duchess of Beltshire's sister, and I naturally supposed she was the same sort; but you never can tell in those English families. They are so big that there's room for all kinds, and it turns out that Lady Cressida is the moral one—married a clergyman and does missionary work in the East End. Think of my taking such a lot of trouble about a clergyman's wife who wears Indian jewelry and botanizes! She made Gus take her all through the glasshouses yesterday and bothered him to death by asking him the names of the plants. Fancy treating Gus as if he were the gardener!”

Mrs. Trenor brought this out in a crescendo of indignation.

“Oh, well, perhaps Lady Cressida will reconcile the Wetheralls to meeting Carry Fisher,” said Miss Bart pacifically.

“I'm sure I hope so! But she is boring all the men horribly, and if she takes to distributing tracts, as I hear she does, it will be too depressing. The worst of it is that she would have been so useful at the right time. You know we have to have the Bishop once a year, and she would have given just the right tone to things. I always have horrid luck about the Bishop's visits,” added Mrs. Trenor, whose present misery was being fed by a rapidly rising tide of reminiscence; “last year when he came, Gus forgot all about his being here and brought home the Ned Wintons and the Farleys—five divorces and six sets of children between them!”

“When is Lady Cressida going?” Lily enquired.

Mrs. Trenor cast up her eyes in despair. “My dear, if one only knew! I was in such a hurry to get her away from Maria that I actually forgot to name a date, and Gus says she told some one she meant to stop here all winter.”

“To stop here? In this house?”

“Don't be silly—in America. But if no one else asks her—you know they
never
go to hotels.”

“Perhaps Gus only said it to frighten you.”

“No—I heard her tell Bertha Dorset that she had six months to put in while her husband was taking the cure in the Engadine. You should have seen Bertha look vacant! But it's no joke, you know; if she stays here all the autumn she'll spoil everything, and Maria Van Osburgh will simply exult.”

At this affecting vision, Mrs. Trenor's voice trembled with self-pity.

“Oh, Judy—as if any one were ever bored at Bellomont!” Miss Bart tactfully protested. “You know perfectly well that if Mrs. Van Osburgh were to get all the right people and leave you with all the wrong ones, you'd manage to make things go off and she wouldn't.”

Such an assurance would usually have restored Mrs. Trenor's complacency, but on this occasion it did not chase the cloud from her brow.

“It isn't only Lady Cressida,” she lamented. “Everything has gone wrong this week. I can see that Bertha Dorset is furious with me.”

“Furious with you? Why?”

“Because I told her that Lawrence Selden was coming; but he wouldn't, after all, and she's quite unreasonable enough to think it's my fault.”

Miss Bart put down her pen and sat absently gazing at the note she had begun.

“I thought that was all over,” she said.

“So it is, on his side. And of course Bertha hasn't been idle since. But I fancy she's out of a job just at present—and some one gave me a hint that I had better ask Lawrence. Well, I
did
ask him—but I couldn't make him come; and now I suppose she'll take it out on me by being perfectly nasty to every one else.”

“Oh, she may take it out on
him
by being perfectly charming—to some one else.”

Mrs. Trenor shook her head dolefully. “She knows he wouldn't mind. And who else is there? Alice Wetherall won't let Lucius out of her sight. Ned Silverton can't take his eyes off Carry Fisher—poor boy! Gus is bored by Bertha, Jack Stepney knows her too well—and—well, to be sure, there's Percy Gryce!”

She sat up smiling at the thought.

Miss Bart's countenance did not reflect the smile.

“Oh, she and Mr. Gryce would not be likely to hit it off.”

“You mean that she'd shock him and he'd bore her? Well, that's not such a bad beginning, you know. But I hope she won't take it into her head to be nice to him, for I asked him here on purpose for you.”

Lily laughed. “
Merci du compliment!
I should certainly have no show against Bertha.”

“Do you think I am uncomplimentary? I'm not really, you know. Every one knows you're a thousand times handsomer and cleverer than Bertha; but then you're not nasty. And for always getting what she wants in the long run, commend me to a nasty woman.”

Miss Bart stared in affected reproval. “I thought you were so fond of Bertha.”

“Oh, I am; it's much safer to be fond of dangerous people. But she
is
dangerous—and if I ever saw her up to mischief it's now. I can tell by poor George's manner. That man is a perfect barometer; he always knows when Bertha is going to—”

“To fall?” Miss Bart suggested.

“Don't be shocking! You know he believes in her still. And of course I don't say there's any real harm in Bertha. Only she delights in making people miserable, and especially poor George.”

“Well, he seems cut out for the part; I don't wonder she likes more cheerful companionship.”

“Oh, George is not as dismal as you think. If Bertha didn't worry him he would be quite different. Or if she'd leave him alone and let him arrange his life as he pleases. But she doesn't dare lose her hold of him on account of the money, and so when
he
isn't jealous she pretends to be.”

Miss Bart went on writing in silence, and her hostess sat following her train of thought with frowning intensity.

“Do you know,” she exclaimed after a long pause, “I believe I'll call up Lawrence on the telephone and tell him he simply
must
come?”

“Oh, don't,” said Lily, with a quick suffusion of colour. The blush surprised her almost as much as it did her hostess, who, though not commonly observant of facial changes, sat staring at her with puzzled eyes.

“Good gracious, Lily, how handsome you are! Why? Do you dislike him so much?”

“Not at all; I like him. But if you are actuated by the benevolent intention of protecting me from Bertha—I don't think I need your protection.”

Mrs. Trenor sat up with an exclamation. “Lily!
Percy?
Do you mean to say you've actually done it?”

Miss Bart smiled. “I only mean to say that Mr. Gryce and I are getting to be very good friends.”

“H'm—I see.” Mrs. Trenor fixed a rapt eye upon her. “You know they say he has eight hundred thousand a year—and spends nothing, except on some rubbishy old books. And his mother has heart-disease and will leave him a lot more.
Oh, Lily, do go slowly,
” her friend adjured her.