第 十九 章 · 第19章

The blinds of Mrs. Peniston’s drawing-room were drawn down against

the oppressive June sun, and in the sultry twilight the faces of

her assembled relatives took on a fitting shadow of bereavement.

They were all there: Van Alstynes, Stepneys and Melsons—even a

stray Peniston or two, indicating, by a greater latitude in dress

and manner, the fact of remoter relationship and more settled

hopes. The Peniston side was, in fact, secure in the knowledge that

the bulk of Mr. Peniston’s property “went back”; while the direct

connection hung suspended on the disposal of his widow’s private

fortune and on the uncertainty of its extent. Jack Stepney, in

his new character as the richest nephew, tacitly took the lead,

emphasizing his importance by the deeper gloss of his mourning

and the subdued authority of his manner; while his wife’s bored

attitude and frivolous gown proclaimed the heiress’s disregard of

the insignificant interests at stake. Old Ned Van Alstyne, seated

next to her in a coat that made affliction dapper, twirled his

white moustache to conceal the eager twitch of his lips; and Grace

Stepney, red-nosed and smelling of crape, whispered emotionally to

Mrs. Herbert Melson: “I couldn’t BEAR to see the Niagara anywhere

else!”

A rustle of weeds and quick turning of heads hailed the opening

of the door, and Lily Bart appeared, tall and noble in her black

dress, with Gerty Farish at her side. The women’s faces, as

she paused interrogatively on the threshold, were a study in

hesitation. One or two made faint motions of recognition, which

might have been subdued either by the solemnity of the scene, or by

the doubt as to how far the others meant to go; Mrs. Jack Stepney

gave a careless nod, and Grace Stepney, with a sepulchral gesture,

indicated a seat at her side. But Lily, ignoring the invitation, as

well as Jack Stepney’s official attempt to direct her, moved across

the room with her smooth free gait, and seated herself in a chair

which seemed to have been purposely placed apart from the others.

It was the first time that she had faced her family since her

return from Europe, two weeks earlier; but if she perceived any

uncertainty in their welcome, it served only to add a tinge of

irony to the usual composure of her bearing. The shock of dismay

with which, on the dock, she had heard from Gerty Farish of Mrs.

Peniston’s sudden death, had been mitigated, almost at once, by

the irrepressible thought that now, at last, she would be able to

pay her debts. She had looked forward with considerable uneasiness

to her first encounter with her aunt. Mrs. Peniston had vehemently

opposed her niece’s departure with the Dorsets, and had marked

her continued disapproval by not writing during Lily’s absence.

The certainty that she had heard of the rupture with the Dorsets

made the prospect of the meeting more formidable; and how should

Lily have repressed a quick sense of relief at the thought that,

instead of undergoing the anticipated ordeal, she had only to

enter gracefully on a long-assured inheritance? It had been, in

the consecrated phrase, “always understood” that Mrs. Peniston was

to provide handsomely for her niece; and in the latter’s mind the

understanding had long since crystallized into fact.

“She gets everything, of course—I don’t see what we’re here for,”

Mrs. Jack Stepney remarked with careless loudness to Ned Van

Alstyne; and the latter’s deprecating murmur—“Julia was always

a just woman”—might have been interpreted as signifying either

acquiescence or doubt.

“Well, it’s only about four hundred thousand,” Mrs. Stepney

rejoined with a yawn; and Grace Stepney, in the silence produced by

the lawyer’s preliminary cough, was heard to sob out: “They won’t

find a towel missing—I went over them with her the very day——”

Lily, oppressed by the close atmosphere, and the stifling odour

of fresh mourning, felt her attention straying as Mrs. Peniston’s

lawyer, solemnly erect behind the Buhl table at the end of the

room, began to rattle through the preamble of the will.

“It’s like being in church,” she reflected, wondering vaguely where

Gwen Stepney had got such an awful hat. Then she noticed how stout

Jack had grown—he would soon be almost as plethoric as Herbert

Melson, who sat a few feet off, breathing puffily as he leaned his

black-gloved hands on his stick.

“I wonder why rich people always grow fat—I suppose it’s because

there’s nothing to worry them. If I inherit, I shall have to be

careful of my figure,” she mused, while the lawyer droned on

through a labyrinth of legacies. The servants came first, then

a few charitable institutions, then several remoter Melsons and

Stepneys, who stirred consciously as their names rang out, and then

subsided into a state of impassiveness befitting the solemnity of

the occasion. Ned Van Alstyne, Jack Stepney, and a cousin or two

followed, each coupled with the mention of a few thousands: Lily

wondered that Grace Stepney was not among them. Then she heard her

own name—“to my niece Lily Bart ten thousand dollars—” and after

that the lawyer again lost himself in a coil of unintelligible

periods, from which the concluding phrase flashed out with

startling distinctness: “and the residue of my estate to my dear

cousin and name-sake, Grace Julia Stepney.”

There was a subdued gasp of surprise, a rapid turning of heads, and

a surging of sable figures toward the corner in which Miss Stepney

wailed out her sense of unworthiness through the crumpled ball of a

black-edged handkerchief.

Lily stood apart from the general movement, feeling herself for the

first time utterly alone. No one looked at her, no one seemed aware

of her presence; she was probing the very depths of insignificance.

And under her sense of the collective indifference came the acuter

pang of hopes deceived. Disinherited—she had been disinherited—and

for Grace Stepney! She met Gerty’s lamentable eyes, fixed on her

in a despairing effort at consolation, and the look brought her to

herself. There was something to be done before she left the house:

to be done with all the nobility she knew how to put into such

gestures. She advanced to the group about Miss Stepney, and holding

out her hand said simply: “Dear Grace, I am so glad.”

The other ladies had fallen back at her approach, and a space

created itself about her. It widened as she turned to go, and no

one advanced to fill it up. She paused a moment, glancing about

her, calmly taking the measure of her situation. She heard some one

ask a question about the date of the will; she caught a fragment

of the lawyer’s answer—something about a sudden summons, and an

“earlier instrument.” Then the tide of dispersal began to drift

past her; Mrs. Jack Stepney and Mrs. Herbert Melson stood on the

doorstep awaiting their motor; a sympathizing group escorted Grace

Stepney to the cab it was felt to be fitting she should take,

though she lived but a street or two away; and Miss Bart and Gerty

found themselves almost alone in the purple drawing-room, which

more than ever, in its stuffy dimness, resembled a well-kept family

vault, in which the last corpse had just been decently deposited.

* * * * *

In Gerty Farish’s sitting-room, whither a hansom had carried the

two friends, Lily dropped into a chair with a faint sound of

laughter: it struck her as a humorous coincidence that her aunt’s

legacy should so nearly represent the amount of her debt to Trenor.

The need of discharging that debt had reasserted itself with

increased urgency since her return to America, and she spoke her

first thought in saying to the anxiously hovering Gerty: “I wonder

when the legacies will be paid.”

But Miss Farish could not pause over the legacies; she broke into

a larger indignation. “Oh, Lily, it’s unjust; it’s cruel—Grace

Stepney must FEEL she has no right to all that money!”

“Any one who knew how to please Aunt Julia has a right to her

money,” Miss Bart rejoined philosophically.

“But she was devoted to you—she led every one to think—” Gerty

checked herself in evident embarrassment, and Miss Bart turned to

her with a direct look. “Gerty, be honest: this will was made only

six weeks ago. She had heard of my break with the Dorsets?”

“Every one heard, of course, that there had been some

disagreement—some misunderstanding——”

“Did she hear that Bertha turned me off the yacht?”

“Lily!”

“That was what happened, you know. She said I was trying to marry

George Dorset. She did it to make him think she was jealous. Isn’t

that what she told Gwen Stepney?”

“I don’t know—I don’t listen to such horrors.”

“I MUST listen to them—I must know where I stand.” She paused, and

again sounded a faint note of derision. “Did you notice the women?

They were afraid to snub me while they thought I was going to get

the money—afterward they scuttled off as if I had the plague.”

Gerty remained silent, and she continued: “I stayed on to see

what would happen. They took their cue from Gwen Stepney and Lulu

Melson—I saw them watching to see what Gwen would do.—Gerty, I must

know just what is being said of me.”

“I tell you I don’t listen——”

“One hears such things without listening.” She rose and laid her

resolute hands on Miss Farish’s shoulders. “Gerty, are people going

to cut me?”

“Your FRIENDS, Lily—how can you think it?”

“Who are one’s friends at such a time? Who, but you, you poor

trustful darling? And heaven knows what YOU suspect me of!” She

kissed Gerty with a whimsical murmur. “You’d never let it make any

difference—but then you’re fond of criminals, Gerty! How about the

irreclaimable ones, though? For I’m absolutely impenitent, you

know.”

She drew herself up to the full height of her slender majesty,

towering like some dark angel of defiance above the troubled Gerty,

who could only falter out: “Lily, Lily—how can you laugh about such

things?”

“So as not to weep, perhaps. But no—I’m not of the tearful order. I

discovered early that crying makes my nose red, and the knowledge

has helped me through several painful episodes.” She took a

restless turn about the room, and then, reseating herself, lifted

the bright mockery of her eyes to Gerty’s anxious countenance.

“I shouldn’t have minded, you know, if I’d got the money—” and at

Miss Farish’s protesting “Oh!” she repeated calmly: “Not a straw,

my dear; for, in the first place, they wouldn’t have quite dared

to ignore me; and if they had, it wouldn’t have mattered, because

I should have been independent of them. But now—!” The irony faded

from her eyes, and she bent a clouded face upon her friend.

“How can you talk so, Lily? Of course the money ought to have

been yours, but after all that makes no difference. The important

thing——” Gerty paused, and then continued firmly: “The important

thing is that you should clear yourself—should tell your friends

the whole truth.”

“The whole truth?” Miss Bart laughed. “What is truth? Where a woman

is concerned, it’s the story that’s easiest to believe. In this

case it’s a great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset’s story

than mine, because she has a big house and an opera box, and it’s

convenient to be on good terms with her.”

Miss Farish still fixed her with an anxious gaze. “But what IS your

story, Lily? I don’t believe any one knows it yet.”

“My story?—I don’t believe I know it myself. You see I never

thought of preparing a version in advance as Bertha did—and if I

had, I don’t think I should take the trouble to use it now.”

But Gerty continued with her quiet reasonableness: “I don’t want a

version prepared in advance—but I want you to tell me exactly what

happened from the beginning.”

“From the beginning?” Miss Bart gently mimicked her. “Dear Gerty,

how little imagination you good people have! Why, the beginning

was in my cradle, I suppose—in the way I was brought up, and the

things I was taught to care for. Or no—I won’t blame anybody for

my faults: I’ll say it was in my blood, that I got it from some

wicked pleasure-loving ancestress, who reacted against the homely

virtues of New Amsterdam, and wanted to be back at the court of

the Charleses!” And as Miss Farish continued to press her with

troubled eyes, she went on impatiently: “You asked me just now for

the truth—well, the truth about any girl is that once she’s talked

about she’s done for; and the more she explains her case the worse

it looks.—My good Gerty, you don’t happen to have a cigarette about

you?”

* * * * *

In her stuffy room at the hotel to which she had gone on landing,

Lily Bart that evening reviewed her situation. It was the last week

in June, and none of her friends were in town. The few relatives

who had stayed on, or returned, for the reading of Mrs. Peniston’s

will, had taken flight again that afternoon to Newport or Long

Island; and not one of them had made any proffer of hospitality

to Lily. For the first time in her life she found herself utterly

alone except for Gerty Farish. Even at the actual moment of

her break with the Dorsets she had not had so keen a sense of

its consequences, for the Duchess of Beltshire, hearing of the

catastrophe from Lord Hubert, had instantly offered her protection,

and under her sheltering wing Lily had made an almost triumphant

progress to London. There she had been sorely tempted to linger on

in a society which asked of her only to amuse and charm it, without

enquiring too curiously how she had acquired her gift for doing

so; but Selden, before they parted, had pressed on her the urgent

need of returning at once to her aunt, and Lord Hubert, when he

presently reappeared in London, abounded in the same counsel. Lily

did not need to be told that the Duchess’s championship was not the

best road to social rehabilitation, and as she was besides aware

that her noble defender might at any moment drop her in favour of a

new PROTEGEE, she reluctantly decided to return to America. But she

had not been ten minutes on her native shore before she realized

that she had delayed too long to regain it. The Dorsets, the

Stepneys, the Brys—all the actors and witnesses in the miserable

drama—had preceded her with their version of the case; and, even

had she seen the least chance of gaining a hearing for her own,

some obscure disdain and reluctance would have restrained her.

She knew it was not by explanations and counter-charges that she

could ever hope to recover her lost standing; but even had she felt

the least trust in their efficacy, she would still have been held

back by the feeling which had kept her from defending herself to

Gerty Farish—a feeling that was half pride and half humiliation.

For though she knew she had been ruthlessly sacrificed to Bertha

Dorset’s determination to win back her husband, and though her own

relation to Dorset had been that of the merest good-fellowship, yet

she had been perfectly aware from the outset that her part in the

affair was, as Carry Fisher brutally put it, to distract Dorset’s

attention from his wife. That was what she was “there for”: it was

the price she had chosen to pay for three months of luxury and

freedom from care. Her habit of resolutely facing the facts, in

her rare moments of introspection, did not now allow her to put

any false gloss on the situation. She had suffered for the very

faithfulness with which she had carried out her part of the tacit

compact, but the part was not a handsome one at best, and she saw

it now in all the ugliness of failure.

She saw, too, in the same uncompromising light, the train of

consequences resulting from that failure; and these became clearer

to her with every day of her weary lingering in town. She stayed

on partly for the comfort of Gerty Farish’s nearness, and partly

for lack of knowing where to go. She understood well enough the

nature of the task before her. She must set out to regain, little

by little, the position she had lost; and the first step in the

tedious task was to find out, as soon as possible, on how many

of her friends she could count. Her hopes were mainly centred on

Mrs. Trenor, who had treasures of easy-going tolerance for those

who were amusing or useful to her, and in the noisy rush of whose

existence the still small voice of detraction was slow to make

itself heard. But Judy, though she must have been apprised of Miss

Bart’s return, had not even recognized it by the formal note of

condolence which her friend’s bereavement demanded. Any advance on

Lily’s side might have been perilous: there was nothing to do but

to trust to the happy chance of an accidental meeting, and Lily

knew that, even so late in the season, there was always a hope of

running across her friends in their frequent passages through town.

To this end she assiduously showed herself at the restaurants they

frequented, where, attended by the troubled Gerty, she lunched

luxuriously, as she said, on her expectations.

“My dear Gerty, you wouldn’t have me let the head-waiter see that

I’ve nothing to live on but Aunt Julia’s legacy? Think of Grace

Stepney’s satisfaction if she came in and found us lunching on cold

mutton and tea! What sweet shall we have today, dear—COUPE JACQUES

or PECHES A LA MELBA?”

She dropped the MENU abruptly, with a quick heightening of colour,

and Gerty, following her glance, was aware of the advance, from an

inner room, of a party headed by Mrs. Trenor and Carry Fisher. It

was impossible for these ladies and their companions—among whom

Lily had at once distinguished both Trenor and Rosedale—not to

pass, in going out, the table at which the two girls were seated;

and Gerty’s sense of the fact betrayed itself in the helpless

trepidation of her manner. Miss Bart, on the contrary, borne

forward on the wave of her buoyant grace, and neither shrinking

from her friends nor appearing to lie in wait for them, gave to

the encounter the touch of naturalness which she could impart to

the most strained situations. Such embarrassment as was shown was

on Mrs. Trenor’s side, and manifested itself in the mingling of

exaggerated warmth with imperceptible reservations. Her loudly

affirmed pleasure at seeing Miss Bart took the form of a nebulous

generalization, which included neither enquiries as to her future

nor the expression of a definite wish to see her again. Lily,

well-versed in the language of these omissions, knew that they

were equally intelligible to the other members of the party: even

Rosedale, flushed as he was with the importance of keeping such

company, at once took the temperature of Mrs. Trenor’s cordiality,

and reflected it in his off-hand greeting of Miss Bart. Trenor, red

and uncomfortable, had cut short his salutations on the pretext of

a word to say to the head-waiter; and the rest of the group soon

melted away in Mrs. Trenor’s wake.

It was over in a moment—the waiter, MENU in hand, still hung on

the result of the choice between COUPE JACQUES and PECHES A LA

MELBA—but Miss Bart, in the interval, had taken the measure of her

fate. Where Judy Trenor led, all the world would follow; and Lily

had the doomed sense of the castaway who has signalled in vain to

fleeing sails.

In a flash she remembered Mrs. Trenor’s complaints of Carry

Fisher’s rapacity, and saw that they denoted an unexpected

acquaintance with her husband’s private affairs. In the large

tumultuous disorder of the life at Bellomont, where no one seemed

to have time to observe any one else, and private aims and personal

interests were swept along unheeded in the rush of collective

activities, Lily had fancied herself sheltered from inconvenient

scrutiny; but if Judy knew when Mrs. Fisher borrowed money of

her husband, was she likely to ignore the same transaction on

Lily’s part? If she was careless of his affections she was plainly

jealous of his pocket; and in that fact Lily read the explanation

of her rebuff. The immediate result of these conclusions was the

passionate resolve to pay back her debt to Trenor. That obligation

discharged, she would have but a thousand dollars of Mrs.

Peniston’s legacy left, and nothing to live on but her own small

income, which was considerably less than Gerty Farish’s wretched

pittance; but this consideration gave way to the imperative claim

of her wounded pride. She must be quits with the Trenors first;

after that she would take thought for the future.

In her ignorance of legal procrastinations she had supposed that

her legacy would be paid over within a few days of the reading

of her aunt’s will; and after an interval of anxious suspense,

she wrote to enquire the cause of the delay. There was another

interval before Mrs. Peniston’s lawyer, who was also one of the

executors, replied to the effect that, some questions having arisen

relative to the interpretation of the will, he and his associates

might not be in a position to pay the legacies till the close of

the twelvemonth legally allotted for their settlement. Bewildered

and indignant, Lily resolved to try the effect of a personal

appeal; but she returned from her expedition with a sense of the

powerlessness of beauty and charm against the unfeeling processes

of the law. It seemed intolerable to live on for another year

under the weight of her debt; and in her extremity she decided to

turn to Miss Stepney, who still lingered in town, immersed in the

delectable duty of “going over” her benefactress’s effects. It

was bitter enough for Lily to ask a favour of Grace Stepney, but

the alternative was bitterer still; and one morning she presented

herself at Mrs. Peniston’s, where Grace, for the facilitation of

her pious task, had taken up a provisional abode.

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 positions. 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.”