The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton Part Two
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Edith Wharton >> The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton Part Two
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Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands,
as though it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had
founded the Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and
several other indomitable huntresses of erudition. The Lunch
Club, after three or four winters of lunching and debate, had
acquired such local distinction that the entertainment of
distinguished strangers became one of its accepted functions; in
recognition of which it duly extended to the celebrated "Osric
Dane," on the day of her arrival in Hillbridge, an invitation to
be present at the next meeting.
The Club was to meet at Mrs. Ballinger's. The other members,
behind her back, were of one voice in deploring her unwillingness
to cede her rights in favor of Mrs. Plinth, whose house made a
more impressive setting for the entertainment of celebrities;
while, as Mrs. Leveret observed, there was always the picture-
gallery to fall back on.
Mrs. Plinth made no secret of sharing this view. She had always
regarded it as one of her obligations to entertain the Lunch
Club's distinguished guests. Mrs. Plinth was almost as proud of
her obligations as she was of her picture-gallery; she was in
fact fond of implying that the one possession implied the other,
and that only a woman of her wealth could afford to live up to a
standard as high as that which she had set herself. An all-round
sense of duty, roughly adaptable to various ends, was, in her
opinion, all that Providence exacted of the more humbly
stationed; but the power which had predestined Mrs. Plinth to
keep footmen clearly intended her to maintain an equally
specialized staff of responsibilities. It was the more to be
regretted that Mrs. Ballinger, whose obligations to society were
bounded by the narrow scope of two parlour-maids, should have
been so tenacious of the right to entertain Osric Dane.
The question of that lady's reception had for a month past
profoundly moved the members of the Lunch Club. It was not that
they felt themselves unequal to the task, but that their sense of
the opportunity plunged them into the agreeable uncertainty of
the lady who weighs the alternatives of a well-stocked wardrobe.
If such subsidiary members as Mrs. Leveret were fluttered by the
thought of exchanging ideas with the author of "The Wings of
Death," no forebodings of the kind disturbed the conscious
adequacy of Mrs. Plinth, Mrs. Ballinger and Miss Van Vluyck.
"The Wings of Death" had, in fact, at Miss Van Vluyck's
suggestion, been chosen as the subject of discussion at the last
club meeting, and each member had thus been enabled to express
her own opinion or to appropriate whatever seemed most likely to
be of use in the comments of the others. Mrs. Roby alone had
abstained from profiting by the opportunity thus offered; but it
was now openly recognised that, as a member of the Lunch Club,
Mrs. Roby was a failure. "It all comes," as Miss Van Vluyck put
it, "of accepting a woman on a man's estimation." Mrs. Roby,
returning to Hillbridge from a prolonged sojourn in exotic
regions--the other ladies no longer took the trouble to remember
where--had been emphatically commended by the distinguished
biologist, Professor Foreland, as the most agreeable woman he had
ever met; and the members of the Lunch Club, awed by an encomium
that carried the weight of a diploma, and rashly assuming that
the Professor's social sympathies would follow the line of his
scientific bent, had seized the chance of annexing a biological
member. Their disillusionment was complete. At Miss Van
Vluyck's first off-hand mention of the pterodactyl Mrs. Roby had
confusedly murmured: "I know so little about metres--" and after
that painful betrayal of incompetence she had prudently withdrawn
from farther participation in the mental gymnastics of the club.
"I suppose she flattered him," Miss Van Vluyck summed up--"or
else it's the way she does her hair."
The dimensions of Miss Van Vluyck's dining-room having restricted
the membership of the club to six, the non-conductiveness of one
member was a serious obstacle to the exchange of ideas, and some
wonder had already been expressed that Mrs. Roby should care to
live, as it were, on the intellectual bounty of the others. This
feeling was augmented by the discovery that she had not yet read
"The Wings of Death." She owned to having heard the name of
Osric Dane; but that--incredible as it appeared--was the extent
of her acquaintance with the celebrated novelist. The ladies
could not conceal their surprise, but Mrs. Ballinger, whose pride
in the club made her wish to put even Mrs. Roby in the best
possible light, gently insinuated that, though she had not had
time to acquaint herself with "The Wings of Death," she must at
least be familiar with its equally remarkable predecessor, "The
Supreme Instant."
Mrs. Roby wrinkled her sunny brows in a conscientious effort of
memory, as a result of which she recalled that, oh, yes, she HAD
seen the book at her brother's, when she was staying with him in
Brazil, and had even carried it off to read one day on a boating
party; but they had all got to shying things at each other in the
boat, and the book had gone overboard, so she had never had the
chance--
The picture evoked by this anecdote did not advance Mrs. Roby's
credit with the club, and there was a painful pause, which was
broken by Mrs. Plinth's remarking: "I can understand that, with
all your other pursuits, you should not find much time for
reading; but I should have thought you might at least have GOT UP
'The Wings of Death' before Osric Dane's arrival."
Mrs. Roby took this rebuke good-humouredly. She had meant, she
owned to glance through the book; but she had been so absorbed in
a novel of Trollope's that--
"No one reads Trollope now," Mrs. Ballinger interrupted
impatiently.
Mrs. Roby looked pained. "I'm only just beginning," she
confessed.
"And does he interest you?" Mrs. Plinth inquired.
"He amuses me."
"Amusement," said Mrs. Plinth sententiously, "is hardly what I
look for in my choice of books."
"Oh, certainly, 'The Wings of Death' is not amusing," ventured
Mrs. Leveret, whose manner of putting forth an opinion was like
that of an obliging salesman with a variety of other styles to
submit if his first selection does not suit.
"Was it MEANT to be?" enquired Mrs. Plinth, who was fond of
asking questions that she permitted no one but herself to answer.
"Assuredly not."
"Assuredly not--that is what I was going to say," assented Mrs.
Leveret, hastily rolling up her opinion and reaching for another.
"It was meant to--to elevate."
Miss Van Vluyck adjusted her spectacles as though they were the
black cap of condemnation. "I hardly see," she interposed, "how
a book steeped in the bitterest pessimism can be said to elevate,
however much it may instruct."
"I meant, of course, to instruct," said Mrs. Leveret, flurried by
the unexpected distinction between two terms which she had
supposed to be synonymous. Mrs. Leveret's enjoyment of the Lunch
Club was frequently marred by such surprises; and not knowing her
own value to the other ladies as a mirror for their mental
complacency she was sometimes troubled by a doubt of her
worthiness to join in their debates. It was only the fact of
having a dull sister who thought her clever that saved her from a
sense of hopeless inferiority.
"Do they get married in the end?" Mrs. Roby interposed.
"They--who?" the Lunch Club collectively exclaimed.
"Why, the girl and man. It's a novel, isn't it? I always think
that's the one thing that matters. If they're parted it spoils
my dinner."
Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Ballinger exchanged scandalised glances, and
the latter said: "I should hardly advise you to read 'The Wings
of Death,' in that spirit. For my part, when there are so many
books that one HAS to read, I wonder how any one can find time
for those that are merely amusing."
"The beautiful part of it," Laura Glyde murmured, "is surely just
this--that no one can tell HOW 'The Wings of Death' ends. Osric
Dane, overcome by the dread significance of her own meaning, has
mercifully veiled it--perhaps even from herself--as Apelles, in
representing the sacrifice of Iphigenia, veiled the face of
Agamemnon."
"What's that? Is it poetry?" whispered Mrs. Leveret nervously to
Mrs. Plinth, who, disdaining a definite reply, said coldly: "You
should look it up. I always make it a point to look things up."
Her tone added--"though I might easily have it done for me by the
footman."
"I was about to say," Miss Van Vluyck resumed, "that it must
always be a question whether a book CAN instruct unless it
elevates."
"Oh--" murmured Mrs. Leveret, now feeling herself hopelessly
astray.
"I don't know," said Mrs. Ballinger, scenting in Miss Van
Vluyck's tone a tendency to depreciate the coveted distinction of
entertaining Osric Dane; "I don't know that such a question can
seriously be raised as to a book which has attracted more
attention among thoughtful people than any novel since 'Robert
Elsmere.'"
"Oh, but don't you see," exclaimed Laura Glyde, "that it's just
the dark hopelessness of it all--the wonderful tone-scheme of
black on black--that makes it such an artistic achievement? It
reminded me so when I read it of Prince Rupert's maniere noire . . .
the book is etched, not painted, yet one feels the colour
values so intensely . . ."
"Who is HE?" Mrs. Leveret whispered to her neighbour. "Some one
she's met abroad?"
"The wonderful part of the book," Mrs. Ballinger conceded, "is
that it may be looked at from so many points of view. I hear
that as a study of determinism Professor Lupton ranks it with
'The Data of Ethics.'"
"I'm told that Osric Dane spent ten years in preparatory studies
before beginning to write it," said Mrs. Plinth. "She looks up
everything--verifies everything. It has always been my
principle, as you know. Nothing would induce me, now, to put
aside a book before I'd finished it, just because I can buy as
many more as I want."
"And what do YOU think of 'The Wings of Death'?" Mrs. Roby
abruptly asked her.
It was the kind of question that might be termed out of order,
and the ladies glanced at each other as though disclaiming any
share in such a breach of discipline. They all knew that there
was nothing Mrs. Plinth so much disliked as being asked her
opinion of a book. Books were written to read; if one read them
what more could be expected? To be questioned in detail
regarding the contents of a volume seemed to her as great an
outrage as being searched for smuggled laces at the Custom House.
The club had always respected this idiosyncrasy of Mrs. Plinth's.
Such opinions as she had were imposing and substantial: her mind,
like her house, was furnished with monumental "pieces" that were
not meant to be suddenly disarranged; and it was one of the
unwritten rules of the Lunch Club that, within her own province,
each member's habits of thought should be respected. The meeting
therefore closed with an increased sense, on the part of the
other ladies, of Mrs. Roby's hopeless unfitness to be one of
them.
II
Mrs. Leveret, on the eventful day, had arrived early at Mrs.
Ballinger's, her volume of Appropriate Allusions in her pocket.
It always flustered Mrs. Leveret to be late at the Lunch Club:
she liked to collect her thoughts and gather a hint, as the
others assembled, of the turn the conversation was likely to
take. To-day, however, she felt herself completely at a loss;
and even the familiar contact of Appropriate Allusions, which
stuck into her as she sat down, failed to give her any
reassurance. It was an admirable little volume, compiled to meet
all the social emergencies; so that, whether on the occasion of
Anniversaries, joyful or melancholy (as the classification ran),
of Banquets, social or municipal, or of Baptisms, Church of
England or sectarian, its student need never be at a loss for a
pertinent reference. Mrs. Leveret, though she had for years
devoutly conned its pages, valued it, however, rather for its
moral support than for its practical services; for though in the
privacy of her own room she commanded an army of quotations,
these invariably deserted her at the critical moment, and the
only line she retained--CANST THOU DRAW OUT LEVIATHAN WITH A
HOOK?--was one she had never yet found the occasion to apply.
To-day she felt that even the complete mastery of the volume
would hardly have insured her self-possession; for she thought it
probable, even if she DID, in some miraculous way, remember an
Allusion, it would be only to find that Osric Dane used a
different volume (Mrs. Leveret was convinced that literary people
always carried them), and would consequently not recognise her
quotations.
Mrs. Leveret's sense of being adrift was intensified by the
appearance of Mrs. Ballinger's drawing-room. To a careless eye
its aspect was unchanged; but those acquainted with Mrs.
Ballinger's way of arranging her books would instantly have
detected the marks of recent perturbation. Mrs. Ballinger's
province, as a member of the Lunch Club, was the Book of the Day.
On that, whatever it was, from a novel to a treatise on
experimental psychology, she was confidently, authoritatively
"up." What became of last year's books, or last week's even;
what she did with the "subjects" she had previously professed
with equal authority; no one had ever yet discovered. Her mind
was an hotel where facts came and went like transient lodgers,
without leaving their address behind, and frequently without
paying for their board. It was Mrs. Ballinger's boast that she
was "abreast with the Thought of the Day," and her pride that
this advanced position should be expressed by the books on her
drawing-room table. These volumes, frequently renewed, and
almost always damp from the press, bore names generally
unfamiliar to Mrs. Leveret, and giving her, as she furtively
scanned them, a disheartening glimpse of new fields of knowledge
to be breathlessly traversed in Mrs. Ballinger's wake. But to-
day a number of maturer-looking volumes were adroitly mingled
with the primeurs of the press--Karl Marx jostled Professor
Bergson, and the "Confessions of St. Augustine" lay beside the
last work on "Mendelism"; so that even to Mrs. Leveret's
fluttered perceptions it was clear that Mrs. Ballinger didn't in
the least know what Osric Dane was likely to talk about, and had
taken measures to be prepared for anything. Mrs. Leveret felt
like a passenger on an ocean steamer who is told that there is no
immediate danger, but that she had better put on her life-belt.
It was a relief to be roused from these forebodings by Miss Van
Vluyck's arrival.
"Well, my dear," the new-comer briskly asked her hostess, "what
subjects are we to discuss to-day?"
Mrs. Ballinger was furtively replacing a volume of Wordsworth by
a copy of Verlaine. "I hardly know," she said somewhat
nervously. "Perhaps we had better leave that to circumstances."
"Circumstances?" said Miss Van Vluyck drily. "That means, I
suppose, that Laura Glyde will take the floor as usual, and we
shall be deluged with literature."
Philanthropy and statistics were Miss Van Vluyck's province, and
she naturally resented any tendency to divert their guest's
attention from these topics.
Mrs. Plinth at this moment appeared.
"Literature?" she protested in a tone of remonstrance. "But this
is perfectly unexpected. I understood we were to talk of Osric
Dane's novel."
Mrs. Ballinger winced at the discrimination, but let it pass.
"We can hardly make that our chief subject--at least not TOO
intentionally," she suggested. "Of course we can let our talk
DRIFT in that direction; but we ought to have some other topic as
an introduction, and that is what I wanted to consult you about.
The fact is, we know so little of Osric Dane's tastes and
interests that it is difficult to make any special preparation."
"It may be difficult," said Mrs. Plinth with decision, "but it is
absolutely necessary. I know what that happy-go-lucky principle
leads to. As I told one of my nieces the other day, there are
certain emergencies for which a lady should always be prepared.
It's in shocking taste to wear colours when one pays a visit of
condolence, or a last year's dress when there are reports that
one's husband is on the wrong side of the market; and so it is
with conversation. All I ask is that I should know beforehand
what is to be talked about; then I feel sure of being able to say
the proper thing."
"I quite agree with you," Mrs. Ballinger anxiously assented;
"but--"
And at that instant, heralded by the fluttered parlour-maid,
Osric Dane appeared upon the threshold.
Mrs. Leveret told her sister afterward that she had known at a
glance what was coming. She saw that Osric Dane was not going to
meet them half way. That distinguished personage had indeed
entered with an air of compulsion not calculated to promote the
easy exercise of hospitality. She looked as though she were
about to be photographed for a new edition of her books.
The desire to propitiate a divinity is generally in inverse ratio
to its responsiveness, and the sense of discouragement produced
by Osric Dane's entrance visibly increased the Lunch Club's
eagerness to please her. Any lingering idea that she might
consider herself under an obligation to her entertainers was at
once dispelled by her manner: as Mrs. Leveret said afterward to
her sister, she had a way of looking at you that made you feel as
if there was something wrong with your hat. This evidence of
greatness produced such an immediate impression on the ladies
that a shudder of awe ran through them when Mrs. Roby, as their
hostess led the great personage into the dining-room, turned back
to whisper to the others: "What a brute she is!"
The hour about the table did not tend to correct this verdict.
It was passed by Osric Dane in the silent deglutition of Mrs.
Ballinger's menu, and by the members of the Club in the emission
of tentative platitudes which their guest seemed to swallow as
perfunctorily as the successive courses of the luncheon.
Mrs. Ballinger's deplorable delay in fixing a topic had thrown
the Club into a mental disarray which increased with the return
to the drawing-room, where the actual business of discussion was
to open. Each lady waited for the other to speak; and there was
a general shock of disappointment when their hostess opened the
conversation by the painfully commonplace inquiry: "Is this your
first visit to Hillbridge?"
Even Mrs. Leveret was conscious that this was a bad beginning;
and a vague impulse of deprecation made Miss Glyde interject: "It
is a very small place indeed."
Mrs. Plinth bristled. "We have a great many representative
people," she said, in the tone of one who speaks for her order.
Osric Dane turned to her thoughtfully. "What do they represent?"
she asked.
Mrs. Plinth's constitutional dislike to being questioned was
intensified by her sense of unpreparedness; and her reproachful
glance passed the question on to Mrs. Ballinger.
"Why," said that lady, glancing in turn at the other members, "as
a community I hope it is not too much to say that we stand for
culture."
"For art--" Miss Glyde eagerly interjected.
"For art and literature," Mrs. Ballinger emended.
"And for sociology, I trust," snapped Miss Van Vluyck.
"We have a standard," said Mrs. Plinth, feeling herself suddenly
secure on the vast expanse of a generalisation: and Mrs. Leveret,
thinking there must be room for more than one on so broad a
statement, took courage to murmur: "Oh, certainly; we have a
standard."
"The object of our little club," Mrs. Ballinger continued, "is to
concentrate the highest tendencies of Hillbridge--to centralise
and focus its complex intellectual effort."
This was felt to be so happy that the ladies drew an almost
audible breath of relief.
"We aspire," the President went on, "to stand for what is highest
in art, literature and ethics."
Osric Dane again turned to her. "What ethics?" she asked.
A tremor of apprehension encircled the room. None of the ladies
required any preparation to pronounce on a question of morals;
but when they were called ethics it was different. The club,
when fresh from the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," the "Reader's
Handbook" or Smith's "Classical Dictionary," could deal
confidently with any subject; but when taken unawares it had been
known to define agnosticism as a heresy of the Early Church and
Professor Froude as a distinguished histologist; and such minor
members as Mrs. Leveret still secretly regarded ethics as
something vaguely pagan.
Even to Mrs. Ballinger, Osric Dane's question was unsettling, and
there was a general sense of gratitude when Laura Glyde leaned
forward to say, with her most sympathetic accent: "You must
excuse us, Mrs. Dane, for not being able, just at present, to
talk of anything but 'The Wings of Death.'"
"Yes," said Miss Van Vluyck, with a sudden resolve to carry the
war into the enemy's camp. "We are so anxious to know the exact
purpose you had in mind in writing your wonderful book."
"You will find," Mrs. Plinth interposed, "that we are not
superficial readers."
"We are eager to hear from you," Miss Van Vluyck continued, "if
the pessimistic tendency of the book is an expression of your own
convictions or--"
"Or merely," Miss Glyde hastily thrust in, "a sombre background
brushed in to throw your figures into more vivid relief. ARE you
not primarily plastic?"
"I have always maintained," Mrs. Ballinger interposed, "that you
represent the purely objective method--"
Osric Dane helped herself critically to coffee. "How do you
define objective?" she then inquired.
There was a flurried pause before Laura Glyde intensely murmured:
"In reading YOU we don't define, we feel."
Osric Dane smiled. "The cerebellum," she remarked, "is not
infrequently the seat of the literary emotions." And she took a
second lump of sugar.
The sting that this remark was vaguely felt to conceal was almost
neutralised by the satisfaction of being addressed in such
technical language.
"Ah, the cerebellum," said Miss Van Vluyck complacently. "The
Club took a course in psychology last winter."
"Which psychology?" asked Osric Dane.
There was an agonising pause, during which each member of the
Club secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the
others. Only Mrs. Roby went on placidly sipping her chartreuse.
At last Mrs. Ballinger said, with an attempt at a high tone:
"Well, really, you know, it was last year that we took
psychology, and this winter we have been so absorbed in--"
She broke off, nervously trying to recall some of the Club's
discussions; but her faculties seemed to be paralysed by the
petrifying stare of Osric Dane. What HAD the club been absorbed
in lately? Mrs. Ballinger, with a vague purpose of gaining time,
repeated slowly: "We've been so intensely absorbed in--"
Mrs. Roby put down her liqueur glass and drew near the group with
a smile.
"In Xingu?" she gently prompted.
A thrill ran through the other members. They exchanged confused
glances, and then, with one accord, turned a gaze of mingled
relief and interrogation on their unexpected rescuer. The
expression of each denoted a different phase of the same emotion.
Mrs. Plinth was the first to compose her features to an air of
reassurance: after a moment's hasty adjustment her look almost
implied that it was she who had given the word to Mrs. Ballinger.
"Xingu, of course!" exclaimed the latter with her accustomed
promptness, while Miss Van Vluyck and Laura Glyde seemed to be
plumbing the depths of memory, and Mrs. Leveret, feeling
apprehensively for Appropriate Allusions, was somehow reassured
by the uncomfortable pressure of its bulk against her person.
Osric Dane's change of countenance was no less striking than that
of her entertainers. She too put down her coffee-cup, but with a
look of distinct annoyance: she too wore, for a brief moment,
what Mrs. Roby afterward described as the look of feeling for
something in the back of her head; and before she could dissemble
these momentary signs of weakness, Mrs. Roby, turning to her with
a deferential smile, had said: "And we've been so hoping that
to-day you would tell us just what you think of it."
Osric Dane received the homage of the smile as a matter of
course; but the accompanying question obviously embarrassed her,
and it became clear to her observers that she was not quick at
shifting her facial scenery. It was as though her countenance
had so long been set in an expression of unchallenged superiority
that the muscles had stiffened, and refused to obey her orders.
"Xingu--" she murmured, as if seeking in her turn to gain time.
Mrs. Roby continued to press her. "Knowing how engrossing the
subject is, you will understand how it happens that the Club has
let everything else go to the wall for the moment. Since we took
up Xingu I might almost say--were it not for your books--that
nothing else seems to us worth remembering."
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