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—which, as she entered thehansom, turned from the opposite corner and vanished in the obscurity ofthe side street. The cares of a large party always prevailedover personal feelings, and Lily saw no change in her hostess’s manner.Nevertheless, she was soon aware that the experiment of coming toBellomont was destined not to be successful. The party was made up ofwhat Mrs. Trenor called “poky people”—her generic name for persons whodid not play bridge—and, it being her habit to group all suchobstructionists in one class, she usually invited them together,regardless of their other characteristics. In such emergencies, Judy would usually have turned toLily to fuse the discordant elements; and Miss Bart, assuming that such aservice was expected of her, threw herself into it with her accustomedzeal.
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After calculating what she owes Gus Trenor, she resolves to ask her aunt for money, but Mrs. Peniston refuses to help her niece when she discovers that some of her debts are related to gambling. She scolds Lily for her rash behavior and privately condemns her for allowing rumors about accepting romantic advances from Gus Trenor and George Dorset to circulate about her. Ned Silverton—A young man, whose first intention was to live on proofreading and write an epic, but ended up living off his friends. Ned's romantic relationship at the Bellomont house party is with Carry Fisher. Six months later, Ned accompanies Lily and the Dorsets on their Mediterranean cruise.
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton – review
It was for a moment only, however; for when he leaned nearer and drewdown her hands with a gesture less passionate than grave, she turned onhim a face softened but not disfigured by emotion, and he said tohimself, somewhat cruelly, that even her weeping was an art. ” The slow colour rose toher cheek, not a blush of excitement but drawn from the deep wells offeeling; it was as if the effort of her spirit had produced it. Lily had no real intimacy with nature, but she had a passion for theappropriate and could be keenly sensitive to a scene which was thefitting background of her own sensations. The landscape outspread belowher seemed an enlargement of her present mood, and she found something ofherself in its calmness, its breadth, its long free reaches. On thenearer slopes the sugar-maples wavered like pyres of light; lower downwas a massing of grey orchards, and here and there the lingering green ofan oak-grove. Two or three red farm-houses dozed under the apple-trees,and the white wooden spire of a village church showed beyond the shoulderof the hill; while far below, in a haze of dust, the high-road ranbetween the fields.
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There weremoments when she longed blindly for anything different, anything strange,remote and untried; but the utmost reach of her imagination did not gobeyond picturing her usual life in a new setting. She could not figureherself as anywhere but in a drawing-room, diffusing elegance as a flowersheds perfume. Against the dullchocolate-coloured background of the restaurant, the purity of her headstood out as it had never done in the most brightly lit ball-room. Helooked at her with a startled uncomfortable feeling, as though her beautywere a forgotten enemy that had lain in ambush and now sprang out on himunawares.
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The impulse to show herself in a splendidsetting—she had thought for a moment of representing Tiepolo’sCleopatra—had yielded to the truer instinct of trusting to herunassisted beauty, and she had purposely chosen a picture withoutdistracting accessories of dress or surroundings. Her pale draperies,and the background of foliage against which she stood, served only torelieve the long dryad-like curves that swept upward from her poised footto her lifted arm. The noble buoyancy of her attitude, its suggestion ofsoaring grace, revealed the touch of poetry in her beauty that Seldenalways felt in her presence, yet lost the sense of when he was not withher. Its expression was now so vivid that for the first time he seemed tosee before him the real Lily Bart, divested of the trivialities of herlittle world, and catching for a moment a note of that eternal harmony ofwhich her beauty was a part.
The ladies stood in unrelatedattitudes calculated to isolate their effects, and the men hung aboutthem as irrelevantly as stage heroes whose tailors are named in theprogramme. It was Selden himself who unwittingly fused the group byarresting the attention of one of its members. She held out her hand with a charming gesture in which dismissal wasshorn of its rigour. Its hint of future leniency made Rosedale rise inobedience to it, a little flushed with his unhoped-for success, anddisciplined by the tradition of his blood to accept what was conceded,without undue haste to press for more. Something in his promptacquiescence frightened her; she felt behind it the stored force of apatience that might subdue the strongest will. But at least they hadparted amicably, and he was out of the house without meetingSelden—Selden, whose continued absence now smote her with a new alarm.Rosedale had remained over an hour, and she understood that it was nowtoo late to hope for Selden.
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Bertha had been kind to her, they had lived together, during the lastmonths, on terms of easy friendship, and the sense of friction of whichLily had recently become aware seemed to make it the more urgent that sheshould work undividedly in her friend’s interest. At this picture of loveliness in distress, the pathos of which washeightened by the light touch with which it was drawn, a murmur ofindignant sympathy broke from Trenor. This impulse was reinforced by the reflection that ifshe had married Gryce she would have been surrounded by flattery andapproval, whereas, having refused to sacrifice herself to expediency, shewas left to bear the whole cost of her resistance. Miss Bart, on her way to the station, had leisure to muse over herfriend’s words, and their peculiar application to herself. Why shouldshe have to suffer for having once, for a few hours, borrowed money of anelderly cousin, when a woman like Carry Fisher could make a livingunrebuked from the good-nature of her men friends and the tolerance oftheir wives?
Notes
In town she returned to preoccupations which, for the moment, had thehappy effect of banishing troublesome thoughts. The Welly Brys, aftermuch debate, and anxious counsel with their newly-acquired friends, haddecided on the bold move of giving a general entertainment. To attacksociety collectively, when one’s means of approach are limited to a fewacquaintances, is like advancing into a strange country with aninsufficient number of scouts; but such rash tactics have sometimes ledto brilliant victories, and the Brys had determined to put their fate tothe touch.
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EDITH WHARTON
Theimportunate memory was kept before her by its ironic contrast to herpresent situation, since her walk with Selden had represented anirresistible flight from just such a climax as the present excursion wasdesigned to bring about. But other memories importuned her also; therecollection of similar situations, as skillfully led up to, but throughsome malice of fortune, or her own unsteadiness of purpose, alwaysfailing of the intended result. As the wife ofRosedale—the Rosedale she felt it in her power to create—she would atleast present an invulnerable front to her enemy.
As she turned homeward her thoughts shrank in anticipation from the factthat there would be nothing to get up for the next morning. The luxury oflying late in bed was a pleasure belonging to the life of ease; it had nopart in the utilitarian existence of the boarding-house. She liked toleave her room early, and to return to it as late as possible; and shewas walking slowly now in order to postpone the detested approach to herdoorstep. He sat silent, his thick hands clasped on the table, his little puzzledeyes exploring the recesses of the deserted restaurant. “It was no place for you, anyhow,” he agreed, so suffused and immersed inthe light of her full gaze that he found himself being drawn into strangedepths of intimacy.
Intimacy with the Dorsets was not likely to lessen such difficulties onthe material side. Mrs. Dorset had none of Judy Trenor’s lavish impulses,and Dorset’s admiration was not likely to express itself in financial“tips,” even had Lily cared to renew her experiences in that line. Whatshe required, for the moment, of the Dorsets’ friendship, was simply itssocial sanction. She knew that people were beginning to talk of her; butthis fact did not alarm her as it had alarmed Mrs. Peniston. In her setsuch gossip was not unusual, and a handsome girl who flirted with amarried man was merely assumed to be pressing to the limit of heropportunities. Trenor had married young, and since hismarriage his intercourse with women had not taken the form of thesentimental small-talk which doubles upon itself like the paths in amaze.
It was the first time shehad received a direct communication from Bellomont since the close of herlast visit there, and she was still visited by the dread of havingincurred Judy’s displeasure. But this characteristic command seemed toreestablish their former relations; and Lily smiled at the thought thather friend had probably summoned her in order to hear about the Brys’entertainment. Mrs. Trenor had absented herself from the feast, perhapsfor the reason so frankly enunciated by her husband, perhaps because, asMrs. Lily was quite ready to gratify this curiosity, butit happened that she was dining out.
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