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CHAPTER 11
Meanwhile the holidays had gone by and the season was beginning.
Fifth Avenue had become a nightly torrent of carriages surging upward to the
fashionable quarters about the Park, where illuminated windows and outspread awnings
betokened the usual routine of hospitality.
Other tributary currents crossed the mainstream, bearing their freight to the
theatres, restaurants or opera; and Mrs. Peniston, from the secluded watch-tower of
her upper window, could tell to a nicety
just when the chronic volume of sound was increased by the sudden influx setting
toward a Van Osburgh ball, or when the multiplication of wheels meant merely that
the opera was over, or that there was a big supper at Sherry's.
Mrs. Peniston followed the rise and culmination of the season as keenly as the
most active sharer in its gaieties; and, as a looker-on, she enjoyed opportunities of
comparison and generalization such as those who take part must proverbially forego.
No one could have kept a more accurate record of social fluctuations, or have put
a more unerring finger on the distinguishing features of each season: its
dulness, its extravagance, its lack of balls or excess of divorces.
She had a special memory for the vicissitudes of the "new people" who rose
to the surface with each recurring tide, and were either submerged beneath its rush
or landed triumphantly beyond the reach of
envious breakers; and she was apt to display a remarkable retrospective insight
into their ultimate fate, so that, when they had fulfilled their destiny, she was
almost always able to say to Grace Stepney-
-the recipient of her prophecies--that she had known exactly what would happen.
This particular season Mrs. Peniston would have characterized as that in which
everybody "felt poor" except the Welly Brys and Mr. Simon Rosedale.
It had been a bad autumn in Wall Street, where prices fell in accordance with that
peculiar law which proves railway stocks and bales of cotton to be more sensitive to
the allotment of executive power than many
estimable citizens trained to all the advantages of self-government.
Even fortunes supposed to be independent of the market either betrayed a secret
dependence on it, or suffered from a sympathetic affection: fashion sulked in
its country houses, or came to town
incognito, general entertainments were discountenanced, and informality and short
dinners became the fashion.
But society, amused for a while at playing Cinderella, soon wearied of the hearthside
role, and welcomed the Fairy Godmother in the shape of any magician powerful enough
to turn the shrunken pumpkin back again into the golden coach.
The mere fact of growing richer at a time when most people's investments are
shrinking, is calculated to attract envious attention; and according to Wall Street
rumours, Welly Bry and Rosedale had found the secret of performing this miracle.
Rosedale, in particular, was said to have doubled his fortune, and there was talk of
his buying the newly-finished house of one of the victims of the crash, who, in the
space of twelve short months, had made the
same number of millions, built a house in Fifth Avenue, filled a picture-gallery with
old masters, entertained all New York in it, and been smuggled out of the country
between a trained nurse and a doctor, while
his creditors mounted guard over the old masters, and his guests explained to each
other that they had dined with him only because they wanted to see the pictures.
Mr. Rosedale meant to have a less meteoric career.
He knew he should have to go slowly, and the instincts of his race fitted him to
suffer rebuffs and put up with delays.
But he was prompt to perceive that the general dulness of the season afforded him
an unusual opportunity to shine, and he set about with patient industry to form a
background for his growing glory.
Mrs. Fisher was of immense service to him at this period.
She had set off so many newcomers on the social stage that she was like one of those
pieces of stock scenery which tell the experienced spectator exactly what is going
to take place.
But Mr. Rosedale wanted, in the long run, a more individual environment.
He was sensitive to shades of difference which Miss Bart would never have credited
him with perceiving, because he had no corresponding variations of manner; and it
was becoming more and more clear to him
that Miss Bart herself possessed precisely the complementary qualities needed to round
off his social personality. Such details did not fall within the range
of Mrs. Peniston's vision.
Like many minds of panoramic sweep, hers was apt to overlook the MINUTIAE of the
foreground, and she was much more likely to know where Carry Fisher had found the Welly
Brys' CHEF for them, than what was happening to her own niece.
She was not, however, without purveyors of information ready to supplement her
deficiencies.
Grace Stepney's mind was like a kind of moral fly-paper, to which the buzzing items
of gossip were drawn by a fatal attraction, and where they hung fast in the toils of an
inexorable memory.
Lily would have been surprised to know how many trivial facts concerning herself were
lodged in Miss Stepney's head.
She was quite aware that she was of interest to dingy people, but she assumed
that there is only one form of dinginess, and that admiration for brilliancy is the
natural expression of its inferior state.
She knew that Gerty Farish admired her blindly, and therefore supposed that she
inspired the same sentiments in Grace Stepney, whom she classified as a Gerty
Farish without the saving traits of youth and enthusiasm.
In reality, the two differed from each other as much as they differed from the
object of their mutual contemplation.
Miss Farish's heart was a fountain of tender illusions, Miss Stepney's a precise
register of facts as manifested in their relation to herself.
She had sensibilities which, to Lily, would have seemed comic in a person with a
freckled nose and red eyelids, who lived in a boarding-house and admired Mrs.
Peniston's drawing-room; but poor Grace's
limitations gave them a more concentrated inner life, as poor soil starves certain
plants into intenser efflorescence.
She had in truth no abstract propensity to malice: she did not dislike Lily because
the latter was brilliant and predominant, but because she thought that Lily disliked
her.
It is less mortifying to believe one's self unpopular than insignificant, and vanity
prefers to assume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness.
Even such scant civilities as Lily accorded to Mr. Rosedale would have made Miss
Stepney her friend for life; but how could she foresee that such a friend was worth
cultivating?
How, moreover, can a young woman who has never been ignored measure the pang which
this injury inflicts?
And, lastly, how could Lily, accustomed to choose between a pressure of engagements,
guess that she had mortally offended Miss Stepney by causing her to be excluded from
one of Mrs. Peniston's infrequent dinner- parties?
Mrs. Peniston disliked giving dinners, but she had a high sense of family obligation,
and on the Jack Stepneys' return from their honeymoon she felt it incumbent upon her to
light the drawing-room lamps and extract
her best silver from the Safe Deposit vaults.
Mrs. Peniston's rare entertainments were preceded by days of heart-rending
vacillation as to every detail of the feast, from the seating of the guests to
the pattern of the table-cloth, and in the
course of one of these preliminary discussions she had imprudently suggested
to her cousin Grace that, as the dinner was a family affair, she might be included in
it.
For a week the prospect had lighted up Miss Stepney's colourless existence; then she
had been given to understand that it would be more convenient to have her another day.
Miss Stepney knew exactly what had happened.
Lily, to whom family reunions were occasions of unalloyed dulness, had
persuaded her aunt that a dinner of "smart" people would be much more to the taste of
the young couple, and Mrs. Peniston, who
leaned helplessly on her niece in social matters, had been prevailed upon to
pronounce Grace's exile. After all, Grace could come any other day;
why should she mind being put off?
It was precisely because Miss Stepney could come any other day--and because she knew
her relations were in the secret of her unoccupied evenings--that this incident
loomed gigantically on her horizon.
She was aware that she had Lily to thank for it; and dull resentment was turned to
active animosity.
Mrs. Peniston, on whom she had looked in a day or two after the dinner, laid down her
crochet-work and turned abruptly from her oblique survey of Fifth Avenue.
"Gus Trenor?--Lily and Gus Trenor?" she said, growing so suddenly pale that her
visitor was almost alarmed. "Oh, cousin Julia...of course I don't mean
..."
"I don't know what you DO mean," said Mrs. Peniston, with a frightened quiver in her
small fretful voice. "Such things were never heard of in my day.
And my own niece!
I'm not sure I understand you. Do people say he's in love with her?"
Mrs. Peniston's horror was genuine.
Though she boasted an unequalled familiarity with the secret chronicles of
society, she had the innocence of the school-girl who regards wickedness as a
part of "history," and to whom it never
occurs that the scandals she reads of in lesson-hours may be repeating themselves in
the next street. Mrs. Peniston had kept her imagination
shrouded, like the drawing-room furniture.
She knew, of course, that society was "very much changed," and that many women her
mother would have thought "peculiar" were now in a position to be critical about
their visiting-lists; she had discussed the
perils of divorce with her rector, and had felt thankful at times that Lily was still
unmarried; but the idea that any scandal could attach to a young girl's name, above
all that it could be lightly coupled with
that of a married man, was so new to her that she was as much aghast as if she had
been accused of leaving her carpets down all summer, or of violating any of the
other cardinal laws of housekeeping.
Miss Stepney, when her first fright had subsided, began to feel the superiority
that greater breadth of mind confers. It was really pitiable to be as ignorant of
the world as Mrs. Peniston!
She smiled at the latter's question. "People always say unpleasant things--and
certainly they're a great deal together.
A friend of mine met them the other afternoon in the Park-quite late, after the
lamps were lit. It's a pity Lily makes herself so
conspicuous."
"CONSPICUOUS!" gasped Mrs. Peniston. She bent forward, lowering her voice to
mitigate the horror. "What sort of things do they say?
That he means to get a divorce and marry her?"
Grace Stepney laughed outright. "Dear me, no!
He would hardly do that.
It--it's a flirtation--nothing more." "A flirtation?
Between my niece and a married man?
Do you mean to tell me that, with Lily's looks and advantages, she could find no
better use for her time than to waste it on a fat stupid man almost old enough to be
her father?"
This argument had such a convincing ring that it gave Mrs. Peniston sufficient
reassurance to pick up her work, while she waited for Grace Stepney to rally her
scattered forces.
But Miss Stepney was on the spot in an instant.
"That's the worst of it--people say she isn't wasting her time!
Every one knows, as you say, that Lily is too handsome and-and charming--to devote
herself to a man like Gus Trenor unless--" "Unless?" echoed Mrs. Peniston.
Her visitor drew breath nervously.
It was agreeable to shock Mrs. Peniston, but not to shock her to the verge of anger.
Miss Stepney was not sufficiently familiar with the classic drama to have recalled in
advance how bearers of bad tidings are proverbially received, but she now had a
rapid vision of forfeited dinners and a
reduced wardrobe as the possible consequence of her disinterestedness.
To the honour of her sex, however, hatred of Lily prevailed over more personal
considerations.
Mrs. Peniston had chosen the wrong moment to boast of her niece's charms.
"Unless," said Grace, leaning forward to speak with low-toned emphasis, "unless
there are material advantages to be gained by making herself agreeable to him."
She felt that the moment was tremendous, and remembered suddenly that Mrs.
Peniston's black brocade, with the cut jet fringe, would have been hers at the end of
the season.
Mrs. Peniston put down her work again.
Another aspect of the same idea had presented itself to her, and she felt that
it was beneath her dignity to have her nerves racked by a dependent relative who
wore her old clothes.
"If you take pleasure in annoying me by mysterious insinuations," she said coldly,
"you might at least have chosen a more suitable time than just as I am recovering
from the strain of giving a large dinner."
The mention of the dinner dispelled Miss Stepney's last scruples.
"I don't know why I should be accused of taking pleasure in telling you about Lily.
I was sure I shouldn't get any thanks for it," she returned with a flare of temper.
"But I have some family feeling left, and as you are the only person who has any
authority over Lily, I thought you ought to know what is being said of her."
"Well," said Mrs. Peniston, "what I complain of is that you haven't told me yet
what IS being said." "I didn't suppose I should have to put it
so plainly.
People say that Gus Trenor pays her bills." "Pays her bills--her bills?"
Mrs. Peniston broke into a laugh. "I can't imagine where you can have picked
up such rubbish.
Lily has her own income--and I provide for her very handsomely--"
"Oh, we all know that," interposed Miss Stepney drily.
"But Lily wears a great many smart gowns--"
"I like her to be well-dressed--it's only suitable!"
"Certainly; but then there are her gambling debts besides."
Miss Stepney, in the beginning, had not meant to bring up this point; but Mrs.
Peniston had only her own incredulity to blame.
She was like the stiff-necked unbelievers of Scripture, who must be annihilated to be
convinced. "Gambling debts?
Lily?"
Mrs. Peniston's voice shook with anger and bewilderment.
She wondered whether Grace Stepney had gone out of her mind.
"What do you mean by her gambling debts?"
"Simply that if one plays bridge for money in Lily's set one is liable to lose a great
deal--and I don't suppose Lily always wins."
"Who told you that my niece played cards for money?"
"Mercy, cousin Julia, don't look at me as if I were trying to turn you against Lily!
Everybody knows she is crazy about bridge.
Mrs. Gryce told me herself that it was her gambling that frightened Percy Gryce--it
seems he was really taken with her at first.
But, of course, among Lily's friends it's quite the custom for girls to play for
money. In fact, people are inclined to excuse her
on that account----"
"To excuse her for what?" "For being hard up--and accepting
attentions from men like Gus Trenor--and George Dorset----"
Mrs. Peniston gave another cry.
"George Dorset? Is there any one else?
I should like to know the worst, if you please."
"Don't put it in that way, cousin Julia.
Lately Lily has been a good deal with the Dorsets, and he seems to admire her--but of
course that's only natural.
And I'm sure there is no truth in the horrid things people say; but she HAS been
spending a great deal of money this winter.
Evie Van Osburgh was at Celeste's ordering her trousseau the other day--yes, the
marriage takes place next month--and she told me that Celeste showed her the most
exquisite things she was just sending home to Lily.
And people say that Judy Trenor has quarrelled with her on account of Gus; but
I'm sure I'm sorry I spoke, though I only meant it as a kindness."
Mrs. Peniston's genuine incredulity enabled her to dismiss Miss Stepney with a disdain
which boded ill for that lady's prospect of succeeding to the black brocade; but minds
impenetrable to reason have generally some
crack through which suspicion filters, and her visitor's insinuations did not glide
off as easily as she had expected.
Mrs. Peniston disliked scenes, and her determination to avoid them had always led
her to hold herself aloof from the details of Lily's life.
In her youth, girls had not been supposed to require close supervision.
They were generally assumed to be taken up with the legitimate business of courtship
and marriage, and interference in such affairs on the part of their natural
guardians was considered as unwarrantable
as a spectator's suddenly joining in a game.
There had of course been "fast" girls even in Mrs. Peniston's early experience; but
their fastness, at worst, was understood to be a mere excess of animal spirits, against
which there could be no graver charge than that of being "unladylike."
The modern fastness appeared synonymous with immorality, and the mere idea of
immorality was as offensive to Mrs. Peniston as a smell of cooking in the
drawing-room: it was one of the conceptions her mind refused to admit.
She had no immediate intention of repeating to Lily what she had heard, or even of
trying to ascertain its truth by means of discreet interrogation.
To do so might be to provoke a scene; and a scene, in the shaken state of Mrs.
Peniston's nerves, with the effects of her dinner not worn off, and her mind still
tremulous with new impressions, was a risk she deemed it her duty to avoid.
But there remained in her thoughts a settled deposit of resentment against her
niece, all the denser because it was not to be cleared by explanation or discussion.
It was horrible of a young girl to let herself be talked about; however unfounded
the charges against her, she must be to blame for their having been made.
Mrs. Peniston felt as if there had been a contagious illness in the house, and she
was doomed to sit shivering among her contaminated furniture.