The hour that Olive proposed to Mrs. Burrage, in a note sent early the
next morning, for the interview to which she consented to lend herself,
was the stroke of noon; this period of the day being chosen in
consequence of a prevision of many subsequent calls upon her time. She
remarked in her note that she did not wish any carriage to be sent for
her, and she surged and swayed up the Fifth Avenue on one of the
convulsive, clattering omnibuses which circulate in that thoroughfare.
One of her reasons for mentioning twelve o'clock had been that she knew
Basil Ransom was to call at Tenth Street at eleven, and (as she supposed
he didn't intend to stay all day) this would give her time to see him
come and go. It had been tacitly agreed between them, the night before,
that Verena was quite firm enough in her faith to submit to his visit,
and that such a course would be much more dignified than dodging it.
This understanding passed from one to the other during that dumb embrace
which I have described as taking place before they separated for the
night. Shortly before noon, Olive, passing out of the house, looked into
the big, sunny double parlour, where, in the morning, with all the
husbands absent for the day and all the wives and spinsters launched
upon the town, a young man desiring to hold a debate with a young lady
might enjoy every advantage in the way of a clear field. Basil Ransom
was still there; he and Verena, with the place to themselves, were
standing in the recess of a window, their backs presented to the door.
If he had got up, perhaps he was going, and Olive, softly closing the
door again, waited a little in the hall, ready to pass into the back
part of the house if she should hear him coming out. No sound, however,
reached her ear; apparently he did mean to stay all day, and she should
find him there on her return. She left the house, knowing they were
looking at her from the window as she descended the steps, but feeling
she could not bear to see Basil Ransom's face. As she walked, averting
her own, towards the Fifth Avenue, on the sunny side, she was barely
conscious of the loveliness of the day, the perfect weather, all
suffused and tinted with spring, which sometimes descends upon New York
when the winds of March have been stilled; she was given up only to the
remembrance of that moment when she herself had stood at a window (the
second time he came to see her in Boston), and watched Basil Ransom pass
out with Adeline--with Adeline who had seemed capable then of getting
such a hold on him but had proved as ineffectual in this respect as she
was in every other. She recalled the vision she had allowed to dance
before her as she saw the pair cross the street together, laughing and
talking, and how it seemed to interpose itself against the fears which
already then--so strangely--haunted her. Now that she saw it so
fruitless--and that Verena, moreover, had turned out really so
great--she was rather ashamed of it; she felt associated, however
remotely, in the reasons which had made Mrs. Luna tell her so many fibs
the day before, and there could be nothing elevating in that. As for the
other reasons why her fidgety sister had failed and Mr. Ransom had held
his own course, naturally Miss Chancellor didn't like to think of them.
If she had wondered what Mrs. Burrage wished so particularly to talk
about, she waited some time for the clearing-up of the mystery. During
this interval she sat in a remarkably pretty boudoir, where there were
flowers and faiences and little French pictures, and watched her hostess
revolve round the subject in circles the vagueness of which she tried to
dissimulate. Olive believed she was a person who never could enjoy
asking a favour, especially of a votary of the new ideas; and that was
evidently what was coming. She had asked one already, but that had been
handsomely paid for; the note from Mrs. Burrage which Verena found
awaiting her in Tenth Street, on her arrival, contained the largest
cheque this young woman had ever received for an address. The request
that hung fire had reference to Verena too, of course; and Olive needed
no prompting to feel that her friend's being a young person who took
money could not make Mrs. Burrage's present effort more agreeable. To
this taking of money (for when it came to Verena it was as if it came to
her as well) she herself was now completely inured; money was a
tremendous force, and when one wanted to assault the wrong with every
engine one was happy not to lack the sinews of war. She liked her
hostess better this morning than she had liked her before; she had more
than ever the air of taking all sorts of sentiments and views for
granted between them; which could only be flattering to Olive so long as
it was really Mrs. Burrage who made each advance, while her visitor sat
watchful and motionless. She had a light, clever, familiar way of
traversing an immense distance with a very few words, as when she
remarked, "Well, then, it is settled that she will come, and will stay
till she is tired."
Nothing of the kind had been settled, but Olive helped Mrs. Burrage
(this time) more than she knew by saying, "Why do you want her to visit
you, Mrs. Burrage? why do you want her socially? Are you not aware that
your son, a year ago, desired to marry her?"
"My dear Miss Chancellor, that is just what I wish to talk to you about.
I am aware of everything; I don't believe you ever met any one who is
aware of more things than I." And Olive had to believe this, as Mrs.
Burrage held up, smiling, her intelligent, proud, good-natured,
successful head. "I knew a year ago that my son was in love with your
friend, I know that he has been so ever since, and that in consequence
he would like to marry her to-day. I daresay you don't like the idea of
her marrying at all; it would break up a friendship which is so full of
interest" (Olive wondered for a moment whether she had been going to say
"so full of profit") "for you. This is why I hesitated; but since you
are willing to talk about it, that is just what I want."
"I don't see what good it will do," Olive said.
"How can we tell till we try? I never give a thing up till I have turned
it over in every sense."
It was Mrs. Burrage, however, who did most of the talking; Olive only
inserted from time to time an inquiry, a protest, a correction, an
ejaculation tinged with irony. None of these things checked or diverted
her hostess; Olive saw more and more that she wished to please her, to
win her over, to smooth matters down, to place them in a new and
original light. She was very clever and (little by little Olive said to
herself) absolutely unscrupulous, but she didn't think she was clever
enough for what she had undertaken. This was neither more nor less, in
the first place, than to persuade Miss Chancellor that she and her son
were consumed with sympathy for the movement to which Miss Chancellor
had dedicated her life. But how could Olive believe that, when she saw
the type to which Mrs. Burrage belonged--a type into which nature
herself had inserted a face turned in the very opposite way from all
earnest and improving things? People like Mrs. Burrage lived and
fattened on abuses, prejudices, privileges, on the petrified, cruel
fashions of the past. It must be added, however, that if her hostess was
a humbug, Olive had never met one who provoked her less; she was such a
brilliant, genial, artistic one, with such a recklessness of perfidy,
such a willingness to bribe you if she couldn't deceive you. She seemed
to be offering Olive all the kingdoms of the earth if she would only
exert herself to bring about a state of feeling on Verena Tarrant's part
which would lead the girl to accept Henry Burrage.
"We know it's you--the whole business; that you can do what you please.
You could decide it to-morrow with a word."
She had hesitated at first, and spoken of her hesitation, and it might
have appeared that she would need all her courage to say to Olive, that
way, face to face, that Verena was in such subjection to her. But she
didn't look afraid; she only looked as if it were an infinite pity Miss
Chancellor couldn't understand what immense advantages and rewards there
would be for her in striking an alliance with the house of Burrage.
Olive was so impressed with this, so occupied, even, in wondering what
these mystic benefits might be, and whether after all there might not be
a protection in them (from something worse), a fund of some sort that
she and Verena might convert to a large use, setting aside the mother
and son when once they had got what they had to give--she was so
arrested with the vague daze of this vision, the sense of Mrs. Burrage's
full hands, her eagerness, her thinking it worth while to flatter and
conciliate, whatever her pretexts and pretensions might be, that she was
almost insensible, for the time, to the strangeness of such a woman's
coming round to a positive desire for a connexion with the Tarrants.
Mrs. Burrage had indeed explained this partly by saying that her son's
condition was wearing her out, and that she would enter into anything
that would make him happier, make him better. She was fonder of him than
of the whole world beside, and it was an anguish to her to see him
yearning for Miss Tarrant only to lose her. She made that charge about
Olive's power in the matter in such a way that it seemed at the same
time a tribute to her force of character.
"I don't know on what terms you suppose me to be with my friend," Olive
returned, with considerable majesty. "She will do exactly as she likes,
in such a case as the one you allude to. She is absolutely free; you
speak as if I were her keeper!"
Then Mrs. Burrage explained that of course she didn't mean that Miss
Chancellor exercised a conscious tyranny; but only that Verena had a
boundless admiration for her, saw through her eyes, took the impress of
all her opinions, preferences. She was sure that if Olive would only
take a favourable view of her son Miss Tarrant would instantly throw
herself into it. "It's very true that you may ask me," added Mrs.
Burrage, smiling, "how you can take a favourable view of a young man who
wants to marry the very person in the world you want most to keep
unmarried!"
This description of Verena was of course perfectly correct; but it was
not agreeable to Olive to have the fact in question so clearly
perceived, even by a person who expressed it with an air intimating that
there was nothing in the world _she_ couldn't understand.
"Did your son know that you were going to speak to me about this?" Olive
asked, rather coldly, waiving the question of her influence on Verena
and the state in which she wished her to remain.
"Oh yes, poor dear boy; we had a long talk yesterday, and I told him I
would do what I could for him. Do you remember the little visit I paid
to Cambridge last spring, when I saw you at his rooms? Then it was I
began to perceive how the wind was setting; but yesterday we had a real
_éclaircissement_. I didn't like it at all, at first; I don't mind
telling you that, now--now that I am really enthusiastic about it. When
a girl is as charming, as original, as Miss Tarrant, it doesn't in the
least matter who she is; she makes herself the standard by which you
measure her; she makes her own position. And then Miss Tarrant has such
a future!" Mrs. Burrage added, quickly, as if that were the last thing
to be overlooked. "The whole question has come up again--the feeling
that Henry tried to think dead, or at least dying, has revived, through
the--I hardly know what to call it, but I really may say the
unexpectedly great effect of her appearance here. She was really
wonderful on Wednesday evening; prejudice, conventionality, every
presumption there might be against her, had to fall to the ground. I
expected a success, but I didn't expect what you gave us," Mrs. Burrage
went on, smiling, while Olive noted her "you." "In short, my poor boy
flamed up again; and now I see that he will never again care for any
girl as he cares for that one. My dear Miss Chancellor, _j'en ai pris
mon parti_, and perhaps you know my way of doing that sort of thing. I
am not at all good at resigning myself, but I am excellent at taking up
a craze. I haven't renounced, I have only changed sides. For or against,
I must be a partisan. Don't you know that kind of nature? Henry has put
the affair into my hands, and you see I put it into yours. Do help me;
let us work together."
This was a long, explicit speech for Mrs. Burrage, who dealt, usually,
in the cursory and allusive; and she may very well have expected that
Miss Chancellor would recognise its importance. What Olive did, in fact,
was simply to inquire, by way of rejoinder: "Why did you ask us to come
on?"
If Mrs. Burrage hesitated now, it was only for twenty seconds. "Simply
because we are so interested in your work."
"That surprises me," said Olive thoughtfully.
"I daresay you don't believe it; but such a judgement is superficial. I
am sure we give proof in the offer we make," Mrs. Burrage remarked, with
a good deal of point. "There are plenty of girls--without any views at
all--who would be delighted to marry my son. He is very clever, and he
has a large fortune. Add to that that he's an angel!"
That was very true, and Olive felt all the more that the attitude of
these fortunate people, for whom the world was so well arranged just as
it was, was very curious. But as she sat there it came over her that the
human spirit has many variations, that the influence of the truth is
great, and that there are such things in life as happy surprises, quite
as well as disagreeable ones. Nothing, certainly, forced such people to
fix their affections on the daughter of a "healer"; it would be very
clumsy to pick her out of her generation only for the purpose of
frustrating her. Moreover, her observation of their young host at
Delmonico's and in the spacious box at the Academy of Music, where they
had privacy and ease, and murmured words could pass without making
neighbours more given up to the stage turn their heads--her
consideration of Henry Burrage's manner, suggested to her that she had
measured him rather scantily the year before, that he was as much in
love as the feebler passions of the age permitted (for though Miss
Chancellor believed in the amelioration of humanity, she thought there
was too much water in the blood of all of us), that he prized Verena for
her rarity, which was her genius, her gift, and would therefore have an
interest in promoting it, and that he was of so soft and fine a paste
that his wife might do what she liked with him. Of course there would be
the mother-in-law to count with; but unless she was perjuring herself
shamelessly Mrs. Burrage really had the wish to project herself into the
new atmosphere, or at least to be generous personally; so that, oddly
enough, the fear that most glanced before Olive was not that this high,
free matron, slightly irritable with cleverness and at the same time
good-natured with prosperity, would bully her son's bride, but rather
that she might take too fond a possession of her. It was a fear which
may be described as a presentiment of jealousy. It occurred,
accordingly, to Miss Chancellor's quick conscience that, possibly, the
proposal which presented itself in circumstances so complicated and
anomalous was simply a magnificent chance, an improvement on the very
best, even, that she had dreamed of for Verena. It meant a large command
of money--much larger than her own; the association of a couple of
clever people who simulated conviction very well, whether they felt it
or not, and who had a hundred useful worldly ramifications, and a kind
of social pedestal from which she might really shine afar. The
conscience I have spoken of grew positively sick as it thought of having
such a problem as that to consider, such an ordeal to traverse. In the
presence of such a contingency the poor girl felt grim and helpless; she
could only vaguely wonder whether she were called upon in the name of
duty to lend a hand to the torture of her own spirit.
"And if she should marry him, how could I be sure that--afterwards--you
would care so much about the question which has all our thoughts, hers
and mine?" This inquiry evolved itself from Olive's rapid meditation;
but even to herself it seemed a little rough.
Mrs. Burrage took it admirably. "You think we are feigning an interest,
only to get hold of her? That's not very nice of you, Miss Chancellor;
but of course you have to be tremendously careful. I assure you my son
tells me he firmly believes your movement is the great question of the
immediate future, that it has entered into a new phase; into what does
he call it? the domain of practical politics. As for me, you don't
suppose I don't want everything we poor women can get, or that I would
refuse any privilege or advantage that's offered me? I don't rant or
rave about anything, but I have--as I told you just now--my own quiet
way of being zealous. If you had no worse partisan than I, you would do
very well. My son has talked to me immensely about your ideas; and even
if I should enter into them only because he does, I should do so quite
enough. You may say you don't see Henry dangling about after a wife who
gives public addresses; but I am convinced that a great many things are
coming to pass--very soon, too--that we don't see in advance. Henry is a
gentleman to his finger-tips, and there is not a situation in which he
will not conduct himself with tact."
Olive could see that they really wanted Verena immensely, and it was
impossible for her to believe that if they were to get her they would
not treat her well. It came to her that they would even overindulge her,
flatter her, spoil her; she was perfectly capable, for the moment, of
assuming that Verena was susceptible of deterioration and that her own
treatment of her had been discriminatingly severe. She had a hundred
protests, objections, replies; her only embarrassment could be as to
which she should use first.
"I think you have never seen Doctor Tarrant and his wife," she remarked,
with a calmness which she felt to be very pregnant.
"You mean they are absolutely fearful? My son has told me they are quite
impossible, and I am quite prepared for that. Do you ask how we should
get on with them? My dear young lady, we should get on as you do!"
If Olive had answers, so had Mrs. Burrage; she had still an answer when
her visitor, taking up the supposition that it was in her power to
dispose in any manner whatsoever of Verena, declared that she didn't
know why Mrs. Burrage addressed herself to _her_, that Miss Tarrant was
free as air, that her future was in her own hands, that such a matter as
this was a kind of thing with which it could never occur to one to
interfere. "Dear Miss Chancellor, we don't ask you to interfere. The
only thing we ask of you is simply _not_ to interfere."
"And have you sent for me only for that?"
"For that, and for what I hinted at in my note; that you would really
exercise your influence with Miss Tarrant to induce her to come to us
now for a week or two. That is really, after all, the main thing I ask.
Lend her to us, here, for a little while, and we will take care of the
rest. That sounds conceited--but she _would_ have a good time."
"She doesn't live for that," said Olive.
"What I mean is that she should deliver an address every night!" Mrs.
Burrage returned, smiling.
"I think you try to prove too much. You do believe--though you pretend
you don't--that I control her actions, and as far as possible her
desires, and that I am jealous of any other relations she may possibly
form. I can imagine that we may perhaps have that air, though it only
proves how little such an association as ours is understood, and how
superficial is still"--Olive felt that her "still" was really
historical--"the interpretation of many of the elements in the activity
of women, how much the public conscience with regard to them needs to be
educated. Your conviction with respect to my attitude being what I
believe it to be," Miss Chancellor went on, "I am surprised at your not
perceiving how little it is in my interest to deliver my--my victim up
to you."
If we were at this moment to take, in a single glance, an inside view of
Mrs. Burrage (a liberty we have not yet ventured on), I suspect we
should find that she was considerably exasperated at her visitor's
superior tone, at seeing herself regarded by this dry, shy, obstinate,
provincial young woman as superficial. If she liked Verena very nearly
as much as she tried to convince Miss Chancellor, she was conscious of
disliking Miss Chancellor more than she should probably ever be able to
reveal to Verena. It was doubtless partly her irritation that found a
voice as she said, after a self-administered pinch of caution not to say
too much, "Of course it would be absurd in us to assume that Miss
Tarrant would find my son irresistible, especially as she has already
refused him. But even if she should remain obdurate, should you consider
yourself quite safe as regards others?"
The manner in which Miss Chancellor rose from her chair on hearing these
words showed her hostess that if she had wished to take a little revenge
by frightening her, the experiment was successful. "What others do you
mean?" Olive asked, standing very straight, and turning down her eyes as
from a great height.
Mrs. Burrage--since we have begun to look into her mind we may continue
the process--had not meant any one in particular; but a train of
association was suddenly kindled in her thought by the flash of the
girl's resentment. She remembered the gentleman who had come up to her
in the music-room, after Miss Tarrant's address, while she was talking
with Olive, and to whom that young lady had given so cold a welcome. "I
don't mean any one in particular; but, for instance, there is the young
man to whom she asked me to send an invitation to my party, and who
looked to me like a possible admirer." Mrs. Burrage also got up; then
she stood a moment, closer to her visitor. "Don't you think it's a good
deal to expect that, young, pretty, attractive, clever, charming as she
is, you should be able to keep her always, to exclude other affections,
to cut off a whole side of life, to defend her against dangers--if you
call them dangers--to which every young woman who is not positively
repulsive is exposed? My dear young lady, I wonder if I might give you
three words of advice?" Mrs. Burrage did not wait till Olive had
answered this inquiry; she went on quickly, with her air of knowing
exactly what she wanted to say and feeling at the same time that, good
as it might be, the manner of saying it, like the manner of saying most
other things, was not worth troubling much about. "Don't attempt the
impossible. You have got hold of a good thing; don't spoil it by trying
to stretch it too far. If you don't take the better, perhaps you will
have to take the worse; if it's safety you want I should think she was
much safer with my son--for with us you know the worst--than as a
possible prey to adventurers, to exploiters, or to people who, once they
had got hold of her, would shut her up altogether."
Olive dropped her eyes; she couldn't endure Mrs. Burrage's horrible
expression of being near the mark, her look of worldly cleverness, of a
confidence born of much experience. She felt that nothing would be
spared her, that she should have to go to the end, that this ordeal also
must be faced, and that, in particular, there was a detestable wisdom in
her hostess's advice. She was conscious, however, of no obligation to
recognise it then and there; she wanted to get off, and even to carry
Mrs. Burrage's sapient words along with her--to hurry to some place
where she might be alone and think. "I don't know why you have thought
it right to send for me only to say this. I take no interest whatever in
your son--in his settling in life." And she gathered her mantle more
closely about her, turning away.
"It is exceedingly kind of you to have come," said Mrs. Burrage
imperturbably. "Think of what I have said; I am sure you won't feel that
you have wasted your hour."
"I have a great many things to think of!" Olive exclaimed insincerely;
for she knew that Mrs. Burrage's ideas would haunt her.
"And tell her that if she will make us the little visit, all New York
shall sit at her feet!"
That was what Olive wanted, and yet it seemed a mockery to hear Mrs.
Burrage say it. Miss Chancellor retreated, making no response even when
her hostess declared again that she was under great obligations to her
for coming. When she reached the street she found she was deeply
agitated, but not with a sense of weakness; she hurried along, excited
and dismayed, feeling that her insufferable conscience was bristling
like some irritated animal, that a magnificent offer had really been
made to Verena, and that there was no way for her to persuade herself
she might be silent about it. Of course, if Verena should be tempted by
the idea of being made so much of by the Burrages, the danger of Basil
Ransom getting any kind of hold on her would cease to be pressing. That
was what was present to Olive as she walked along, and that was what
made her nervous, conscious only of this problem that had suddenly
turned the bright day to greyness, heedless of the sophisticated-looking
people who passed her on the wide Fifth Avenue pavement. It had risen in
her mind the day before, planted first by Mrs. Burrage's note; and then,
as we know, she had vaguely entertained the conception, asking Verena
whether she would make the visit if it were again to be pressed upon
them. It had been pressed, certainly, and the terms of the problem were
now so much sharper that they seemed cruel. What had been in her own
mind was that if Verena should appear to lend herself to the Burrages
Basil Ransom might be discouraged--might think that, shabby and poor,
there was no chance for him as against people with every advantage of
fortune and position. She didn't see him relax his purpose so easily;
she knew she didn't believe he was of that pusillanimous fibre. Still,
it was a chance, and any chance that might help her had been worth
considering. At present she saw it was a question not of Verena's
lending herself, but of a positive gift, or at least of a bargain in
which the terms would be immensely liberal. It would be impossible to
use the Burrages as a shelter on the assumption that they were not
dangerous, for they became dangerous from the moment they set up as
sympathisers, took the ground that what they offered the girl was simply
a boundless opportunity. It came back to Olive, again and again, that
this was, and could only be, fantastic and false; but it was always
possible that Verena might not think it so, might trust them all the
way. When Miss Chancellor had a pair of alternatives to consider, a
question of duty to study, she put a kind of passion into it--felt,
above all, that the matter must be settled that very hour, before
anything in life could go on. It seemed to her at present that she
couldn't re-enter the house in Tenth Street without having decided first
whether she might trust the Burrages or not. By "trust" them, she meant
trust them to fail in winning Verena over, while at the same time they
put Basil Ransom on a false scent. Olive was able to say to herself that
he probably wouldn't have the hardihood to push after her into those
gilded saloons, which, in any event, would be closed to him as soon as
the mother and son should discover what he wanted. She even asked
herself whether Verena would not be still better defended from the young
Southerner in New York, amid complicated hospitalities, than in Boston
with a cousin of the enemy. She continued to walk down the Fifth Avenue,
without noticing the cross-streets, and after a while became conscious
that she was approaching Washington Square. By this time she had also
definitely reasoned it out that Basil Ransom and Henry Burrage could not
both capture Miss Tarrant, that therefore there could not be two
dangers, but only one; that this was a good deal gained, and that it
behoved her to determine which peril had most reality, in order that she
might deal with that one only. She held her way to the Square, which, as
all the world knows, is of great extent and open to the encircling
street. The trees and grass-plats had begun to bud and sprout, the
fountains plashed in the sunshine, the children of the quarter, both the
dingier types from the south side, who played games that required much
chalking of the paved walks, and much sprawling and crouching there,
under the feet of passers, and the little curled and feathered people
who drove their hoops under the eyes of French nursemaids--all the
infant population filled the vernal air with small sounds which had a
crude, tender quality, like the leaves and the thin herbage. Olive
wandered through the place, and ended by sitting down on one of the
continuous benches. It was a long time since she had done anything so
vague, so wasteful. There were a dozen things which, as she was staying
over in New York, she ought to do; but she forgot them, or, if she
thought of them, felt that they were now of no moment. She remained in
her place an hour, brooding, tremulous, turning over and over certain
thoughts. It seemed to her that she was face to face with a crisis of
her destiny, and that she must not shrink from seeing it exactly as it
was. Before she rose to return to Tenth Street she had made up her mind
that there was no menace so great as the menace of Basil Ransom; she had
accepted in thought any arrangement which would deliver her from that.
If the Burrages were to take Verena they would take her from Olive
immeasurably less than he would do; it was from him, from him they would
take her most. She walked back to her boarding-house, and the servant
who admitted her said, in answer to her inquiry as to whether Verena
were at home, that Miss Tarrant had gone out with the gentleman who
called in the morning, and had not yet come in. Olive stood staring; the
clock in the hall marked three.