Chapter 5

The next evening, old Mr. Sillerton Jackson came to dinner at the Archers' house.

Mrs. Archer was shy and stayed away from society. But she liked to know everything it did. Her old friend Mr. Sillerton Jackson studied the private lives of his friends. He worked with a collector's patience and the careful method of a man of science.

His sister, Miss Sophy Jackson, lived with him. People who could not get her famous brother invited her instead. Her bits of gossip usefully filled the gaps in his picture.

When something happened that Mrs. Archer wanted to understand, she asked Mr. Jackson to dinner. She invited few people, and she and her daughter Janey were an excellent audience. So he usually came himself instead of sending his sister.

If he could choose, he would take the evenings when Newland was out. Not because he disliked him — the two got on well at their club. But the ladies believed his every word, and Newland liked to weigh the evidence.

In a perfect world, Mr. Jackson would also ask for better food at Adeline's. But you could not have everything. For as long as anyone could remember, New York was divided into two great groups.

The Mingotts and Mansons and all their wide family cared about eating, clothes, and money. The Archer-Newland-van der Luyden side loved travel, gardens, and the best novels. They looked down on the lower kinds of pleasure.

At the Lovell Mingotts' you got wild duck, costly rich dishes, and fine old wines. At Adeline Archer's you could talk about mountain views in the Alps and the novel "The Marble Faun." And luckily the Archer Madeira wine once sailed round the Cape.

So a friendly note from Mrs. Archer always brought the same answer. Mr. Jackson would say, "My last dinner at the Lovell Mingotts' made me ill. Adeline's plain cooking will do me good."

Mrs. Archer, a widow for many years, lived with her son and daughter in West Twenty-eighth Street. The upper floor belonged to Newland. The two women pressed themselves into smaller rooms below.

Mother and daughter shared every taste in perfect peace. They grew ferns, soft green plants, in Wardian cases, small glass plant boxes. They made lace, a fine cloth like a net. They sewed wool patterns and collected old American plates from Revolution days.

They took the magazine "Good Words," and read Ouida's novels for their Italian air. They liked best the ones about country life, though society novels were easier for them to understand.

They spoke hard words about Dickens, who, they said, "never drew a gentleman." Thackeray, they felt, knew the great world less well than Bulwer. But people were starting to call Bulwer old-fashioned.

A beautiful view was what both ladies chiefly looked for when they traveled abroad. Buildings and paintings, they believed, were subjects for men — mostly learned men who read Ruskin.

Mrs. Archer was born a Newland, and mother and daughter looked as alike as sisters. Both were, as people said, "true Newlands" — tall and pale, with shoulders bent a little forward. They had long noses, sweet smiles, and the soft fading fineness of ladies in old paintings by Reynolds.

Their bodies matched in every way but one. Age was making Mrs. Archer wide, and her rich black dress stretched tight over her. Janey stayed thin. Her brown and purple dresses hung looser, year after year, on her unmarried body.

In their minds, Newland knew, they were less alike than they seemed. Long years together gave them the same words and turns of speech. To offer an opinion of her own, each began "Mother thinks" or "Janey thinks."

But under this they were different. Mrs. Archer was calm, without imagination, and rested easily in the world she knew. Janey was full of sudden dreams and strange ideas. They rose from a hidden spring of feeling about love, which she kept pressed down.

Mother and daughter loved each other deeply and honored their son and brother. Archer loved them back tenderly. They admired him far too much, and he took a secret pleasure in it. So his love felt a little guilty, and it never judged them.

After all, he thought, it is good when a man's house respects his authority — his right to rule at home. Sometimes his sense of humor questioned that right.

This evening, the young man felt sure that Mr. Jackson wanted him elsewhere. But he had his own reasons for staying home.

Of course old Jackson wanted to talk about Ellen Olenska. Of course Mrs. Archer and Janey wanted to hear him. But everyone now knew he would marry into the Mingott family. His presence made all three a little uncomfortable. He waited, amused, to see how they would get around it.

They came at it sideways. They began with Mrs. Lemuel Struthers.

"It is a pity the Beauforts asked her," Mrs. Archer said gently. "But then Regina always does what he tells her. And Beaufort—"

"Certain fine points escape Beaufort," said Mr. Jackson. He was studying the fish on his plate. For the thousandth time he wondered why Mrs. Archer's cook always burned the fish eggs black.

"Oh, of course. Beaufort is a vulgar man," said Mrs. Archer.

"My grandfather Newland always said to my mother: 'Whatever you do, do not let that fellow Beaufort meet the girls.' But at least he has spent his life among gentlemen. In England too, they say. It is all a great mystery—"

She glanced at Janey and stopped. Both of them knew every fold of the Beaufort mystery. But in public Mrs. Archer held that the story was not fit for unmarried ears.

"But this Mrs. Struthers," she went on. "What did you say she was, Sillerton?"

"Out of a mine — or rather, out of the drinking-house at the top of the mine. Then she toured New England with the Living Wax-Works, a show of human figures. After the police closed the show, they say she lived—" Mr. Jackson glanced at Janey in his turn.

Janey's eyes grew round and wide. For her, Mrs. Struthers's past still had holes.

"Then," Mr. Jackson continued, "Lemuel Struthers came along. They say his advertising man put the girl's head on the big shoe-polish pictures. Her hair is black, you know — the Egyptian style. Anyhow, he — eventually — married her."

Archer also saw a second thought behind his eyes. It was about the butler, the chief servant of the house. Why did no one tell him never to cut cucumbers, a cool green vegetable, with a steel knife?

He said "eventually" slowly, with weight on each part of the word. It said more than whole books.

"Oh, well. The way things go nowadays, it hardly matters," said Mrs. Archer in a flat voice.

The ladies were not really interested in Mrs. Struthers. Ellen Olenska was too fresh and too exciting a subject. Mrs. Archer only named Mrs. Struthers so that she could soon ask: "And Newland's new cousin — Countess Olenska? Was she at the ball too?"

Archer heard the small sharp edge in "Newland's new cousin," and expected it. Mrs. Archer rarely showed much pleasure in human events. But she was truly glad about her son's engagement.

"Especially after that silly business with Mrs. Rushworth," she said to Janey. She meant an old love story of Newland's. To him it once seemed a mark his soul would always carry.

There was no better match in New York than May Welland, from whatever side you looked. Of course such a marriage was only what Newland deserved. But young men are foolish, and no one can guess what they will do. And some women set traps for them without shame.

So to his mother it seemed a wonder. Her only son sailed safely past the Siren Isle. In the old stories, its singing sea-women pulled sailors to their deaths. Now he was coming home to port, to a quiet, blameless married life.

Mrs. Archer felt all this, and her son knew it. But he also knew that the early news of his engagement troubled her — or rather, its cause did. That was why he stayed at home. On the whole he was a kind and easy master.

"It is not that I am against the Mingotts' family spirit," she complained to Janey. "But why should Newland's engagement be mixed up with the comings and goings of that Olenska woman? I do not see it." Only Janey ever saw these small slips from perfect sweetness.

At the visit to Mrs. Welland she behaved beautifully — and in beautiful behavior no one could beat her. But Newland knew what lay under it, and his future wife surely guessed. All through the visit, she and Janey nervously watched the door, afraid that Madame Olenska might walk in.

When mother and son left the house together, she allowed herself one remark. "I am thankful that Augusta Welland received us alone," she said.

These signs of an inner storm moved Archer all the more. He too felt the Mingotts were going a little too far.

But their family code was strict. Mother and son must never speak of the thing that filled both their minds. So he only said: "Oh, well. When a man gets engaged, there is always a round of family parties to get through. The sooner it is over, the better."

At this his mother only pressed her lips together. Her grey velvet bonnet, a soft hat tied under the chin, carried small frost-white grapes. A lace veil, a thin face covering, hung down from it.

That evening, he felt, she would take her fair and lawful payment. She would lead Mr. Jackson on, and on, about the Countess Olenska. His public duty to the Mingott family was done. So he did not mind private talk about the lady. Only, the subject was starting to bore him.

The sad-faced butler offered the meat, barely warm, with a doubting look. Mr. Jackson's own look was just as doubting, but he took a piece. He quietly smelled the sauce and refused it. He looked lost and hungry. Archer thought: he will probably finish his meal on Ellen Olenska.

Mr. Jackson leaned back and glanced up at the family paintings. Archers, Newlands, and van der Luydens hung in dark frames on the dark walls, lit by candles.

"Ah, how your grandfather Archer loved a good dinner, my dear Newland!" he said. His eyes rested on the painting of a round, full-chested young man. The man wore a blue coat and a stiff high neck-cloth. Behind him stood a country house with tall white posts.

"Well — well — well ... I wonder what he would say to all these foreign marriages!"

Mrs. Archer ignored the hint about her family's cooking. Mr. Jackson went on with slow care: "No. She was not at the ball."

"Ah—" said Mrs. Archer softly. Her tone added: "At least she knew that much about proper behavior."

"Perhaps the Beauforts do not know her," said Janey. She looked innocent, and meant a little harm.

Mr. Jackson paused, like a man tasting a fine Madeira that was not there. "Mrs. Beaufort may not know her," he said. "But Beaufort certainly does. The whole of New York saw her this afternoon, walking up Fifth Avenue with him."

"Mercy—" said Mrs. Archer in a low, pained voice. Clearly it was useless to expect fine feeling from foreigners.

"I wonder if she wears a round hat or a bonnet in the afternoon," said Janey. "At the Opera, I know, she wore dark blue velvet, perfectly plain and flat — like a night-dress."

"Janey!" said her mother. Miss Archer blushed and tried to look bold.

"At any rate, it showed better taste not to go to the ball," Mrs. Archer continued.

Something in her son wanted to push against her. "I do not think taste had anything to do with it," he said. "May told me she meant to go. Then she decided that her dress was not smart enough."

Mrs. Archer smiled, for this confirmed her own guess. "Poor Ellen," she said simply.

Then she added kindly: "We must always remember the strange raising that Medora Manson gave her. What can you expect of a girl who was allowed to wear black satin at her coming-out ball?"

"Ah — don't I remember her in it!" said Mr. Jackson. Then he added: "Poor girl!" He spoke like a man who enjoyed the memory. Even then, he understood what that black dress promised.

"It is odd," said Janey, "that she kept such an ugly name as Ellen. I would change it to Elaine." She glanced around the table to see the effect.

Her brother laughed. "Why Elaine?"

"I don't know. It sounds more — more Polish," said Janey, blushing.

"It sounds like a name that asks to be noticed," said Mrs. Archer in a distant voice. "And that can hardly be what she wishes."

"Why not?" her son broke in, ready to argue. "Why should she not be noticed, if she chooses? Why should she creep about as if the shame was hers?"

"She is 'poor Ellen' because of her terrible marriage, certainly. But must she hide her head like the guilty one?"

"That, I suppose," said Mr. Jackson slowly, "is the line the Mingotts mean to take."

The young man reddened. "I did not wait for their signal, if that is what you mean, sir. Madame Olenska has had an unhappy life. That does not put her outside good society."

"There are stories going around—" began Mr. Jackson, with a glance at Janey.

"Oh, I know — the secretary," the young man cut in. "Nonsense, mother — Janey is grown up. People say the secretary helped her get away from her cruel husband, who kept her almost as a prisoner. Well, what if he did? I hope every man among us would do the same in such a case."

Mr. Jackson glanced over his shoulder at the sad butler. "Perhaps ... that sauce ... just a little, after all—" he said, and he helped himself. Then he said: "I am told she is looking for a house. She means to live here."

"I hear she means to get a divorce," said Janey boldly.

"I hope she will!" Archer cried.

The word fell like a bomb in the pure, calm air of the Archer dining-room. Mrs. Archer raised her fine eyebrows. Their special curve meant, "The butler!"

The young man himself knew not to discuss such private matters in public. So he quickly turned the talk to his visit to old Mrs. Mingott.

After dinner, by a custom older than memory, the ladies drew their long silk dresses up to the sitting room. There they sat beside a Carcel lamp, a fine oil lamp with patterns cut in its glass. The gentlemen stayed downstairs to smoke.

The two women faced each other across a rosewood work-table with a green silk bag under it. Each worked at one end of a long band of cloth with field flowers on it. It was for an extra chair — an "occasional" chair — in the sitting room of the future Mrs. Newland Archer.

While this quiet rite went on upstairs, Archer led Mr. Jackson to the Gothic library. He settled him into an armchair near the fire and handed him a cigar.

Mr. Jackson sank into the armchair, well pleased. He lit it with perfect trust — Newland bought the cigars. Then he stretched his thin old legs toward the coals.

"You say the secretary only helped her to get away, my dear fellow?" he said. "Well, he was still helping her a year later. Somebody met the two of them living at Lausanne together."

Newland reddened. "Living together? Well, why not? Who had the right to make her life over, if she did not have that right herself?"

He went on, hot with anger. "I am sick of the hypocrisy — this saying of one thing and doing of another. It would bury alive a woman of her age, only because her husband prefers to live with harlots." Harlots were women who sold their love for money.

He stopped and turned away angrily to light his own cigar. "Women ought to be free — as free as we are," he said. The words were a discovery, new even to himself. He was too angry to measure how far they might carry him.

Mr. Sillerton Jackson stretched his legs nearer to the coals. He made a long, low sound through his teeth, like a dry, unkind laugh.

"Well," he said after a pause, "it seems that Count Olenski takes your view. For I never heard that he did the smallest thing to get his wife back."