It was generally agreed in New York that the Countess Olenska had "lost
her looks."
She had appeared there first, in Newland Archer's boyhood, as a
brilliantly pretty little girl of nine or ten, of whom people said that
she "ought to be painted." Her parents had been continental wanderers,
and after a roaming babyhood she had lost them both, and been taken in
charge by her aunt, Medora Manson, also a wanderer, who was herself
returning to New York to "settle down."
Poor Medora, repeatedly widowed, was always coming home to settle down
(each time in a less expensive house), and bringing with her a new
husband or an adopted child; but after a few months she invariably
parted from her husband or quarrelled with her ward, and, having got
rid of her house at a loss, set out again on her wanderings. As her
mother had been a Rushworth, and her last unhappy marriage had linked
her to one of the crazy Chiverses, New York looked indulgently on her
eccentricities; but when she returned with her little orphaned niece,
whose parents had been popular in spite of their regrettable taste for
travel, people thought it a pity that the pretty child should be in
such hands.
Every one was disposed to be kind to little Ellen Mingott, though her
dusky red cheeks and tight curls gave her an air of gaiety that seemed
unsuitable in a child who should still have been in black for her
parents. It was one of the misguided Medora's many peculiarities to
flout the unalterable rules that regulated American mourning, and when
she stepped from the steamer her family were scandalised to see that
the crape veil she wore for her own brother was seven inches shorter
than those of her sisters-in-law, while little Ellen was in crimson
merino and amber beads, like a gipsy foundling.
But New York had so long resigned itself to Medora that only a few old
ladies shook their heads over Ellen's gaudy clothes, while her other
relations fell under the charm of her high colour and high spirits.
She was a fearless and familiar little thing, who asked disconcerting
questions, made precocious comments, and possessed outlandish arts,
such as dancing a Spanish shawl dance and singing Neapolitan love-songs
to a guitar. Under the direction of her aunt (whose real name was Mrs.
Thorley Chivers, but who, having received a Papal title, had resumed
her first husband's patronymic, and called herself the Marchioness
Manson, because in Italy she could turn it into Manzoni) the little
girl received an expensive but incoherent education, which included
"drawing from the model," a thing never dreamed of before, and playing
the piano in quintets with professional musicians.
Of course no good could come of this; and when, a few years later,
poor Chivers finally died in a madhouse, his widow (draped in strange
weeds) again pulled up stakes and departed with Ellen, who had grown
into a tall bony girl with conspicuous eyes. For some time no more was
heard of them; then news came of Ellen's marriage to an immensely rich
Polish nobleman of legendary fame, whom she had met at a ball at the
Tuileries, and who was said to have princely establishments in Paris,
Nice and Florence, a yacht at Cowes, and many square miles of shooting
in Transylvania. She disappeared in a kind of sulphurous apotheosis,
and when a few years later Medora again came back to New York, subdued,
impoverished, mourning a third husband, and in quest of a still smaller
house, people wondered that her rich niece had not been able to do
something for her. Then came the news that Ellen's own marriage had
ended in disaster, and that she was herself returning home to seek rest
and oblivion among her kinsfolk.
These things passed through Newland Archer's mind a week later as he
watched the Countess Olenska enter the van der Luyden drawing-room on
the evening of the momentous dinner. The occasion was a solemn one,
and he wondered a little nervously how she would carry it off. She
came rather late, one hand still ungloved, and fastening a bracelet
about her wrist; yet she entered without any appearance of haste or
embarrassment the drawing-room in which New York's most chosen company
was somewhat awfully assembled.
In the middle of the room she paused, looking about her with a grave
mouth and smiling eyes; and in that instant Newland Archer rejected
the general verdict on her looks. It was true that her early radiance
was gone. The red cheeks had paled; she was thin, worn, a little
older-looking than her age, which must have been nearly thirty. But
there was about her the mysterious authority of beauty, a sureness in
the carriage of the head, the movement of the eyes, which, without
being in the least theatrical, struck him as highly trained and full
of a conscious power. At the same time she was simpler in manner than
most of the ladies present, and many people (as he heard afterward
from Janey) were disappointed that her appearance was not more
"stylish"--for stylishness was what New York most valued. It was,
perhaps, Archer reflected, because her early vivacity had disappeared;
because she was so quiet--quiet in her movements, her voice, and the
tones of her low-pitched voice. New York had expected something a good
deal more resonant in a young woman with such a history.
The dinner was a somewhat formidable business. Dining with the van
der Luydens was at best no light matter, and dining there with a Duke
who was their cousin was almost a religious solemnity. It pleased
Archer to think that only an old New Yorker could perceive the shade
of difference (to New York) between being merely a Duke and being the
van der Luydens' Duke. New York took stray noblemen calmly, and even
(except in the Struthers set) with a certain distrustful hauteur; but
when they presented such credentials as these they were received with
an old-fashioned cordiality that they would have been greatly mistaken
in ascribing solely to their standing in Debrett. It was for just such
distinctions that the young man cherished his old New York even while
he smiled at it.
The van der Luydens had done their best to emphasise the importance
of the occasion. The du Lac Sevres and the Trevenna George II plate
were out; so was the van der Luyden "Lowestoft" (East India Company)
and the Dagonet Crown Derby. Mrs. van der Luyden looked more than ever
like a Cabanel, and Mrs. Archer, in her grandmother's seed-pearls and
emeralds, reminded her son of an Isabey miniature. All the ladies had
on their handsomest jewels, but it was characteristic of the house
and the occasion that these were mostly in rather heavy old-fashioned
settings; and old Miss Lanning, who had been persuaded to come,
actually wore her mother's cameos and a Spanish blonde shawl.
The Countess Olenska was the only young woman at the dinner; yet, as
Archer scanned the smooth plump elderly faces between their diamond
necklaces and towering ostrich feathers, they struck him as curiously
immature compared with hers. It frightened him to think what must have
gone to the making of her eyes.
The Duke of St. Austrey, who sat at his hostess's right, was naturally
the chief figure of the evening. But if the Countess Olenska was less
conspicuous than had been hoped, the Duke was almost invisible. Being
a well-bred man he had not (like another recent ducal visitor) come to
the dinner in a shooting-jacket; but his evening clothes were so shabby
and baggy, and he wore them with such an air of their being homespun,
that (with his stooping way of sitting, and the vast beard spreading
over his shirt-front) he hardly gave the appearance of being in dinner
attire. He was short, round-shouldered, sunburnt, with a thick nose,
small eyes and a sociable smile; but he seldom spoke, and when he
did it was in such low tones that, despite the frequent silences of
expectation about the table, his remarks were lost to all but his
neighbours.
When the men joined the ladies after dinner the Duke went straight up
to the Countess Olenska, and they sat down in a corner and plunged
into animated talk. Neither seemed aware that the Duke should first
have paid his respects to Mrs. Lovell Mingott and Mrs. Headly Chivers,
and the Countess have conversed with that amiable hypochondriac, Mr.
Urban Dagonet of Washington Square, who, in order to have the pleasure
of meeting her, had broken through his fixed rule of not dining out
between January and April. The two chatted together for nearly twenty
minutes; then the Countess rose and, walking alone across the wide
drawing-room, sat down at Newland Archer's side.
It was not the custom in New York drawing-rooms for a lady to get
up and walk away from one gentleman in order to seek the company of
another. Etiquette required that she should wait, immovable as an idol,
while the men who wished to converse with her succeeded each other at
her side. But the Countess was apparently unaware of having broken any
rule; she sat at perfect ease in a corner of the sofa beside Archer,
and looked at him with the kindest eyes.
"I want you to talk to me about May," she said.