Chapter 7

Mrs. Henry van der Luyden listened in silence to her cousin, Mrs. Archer.

People knew all this in advance. Mrs. van der Luyden was always silent. By nature and training, she promised nothing. But she was very kind to the people she really liked.

Even so, a cold feeling fell on visitors to the high, white-walled room on Madison Avenue. The pale old armchairs were clearly uncovered just for this visit. Thin cloth still covered the gold figures above the fireplace. It covered the carved frame of "Lady Angelica du Lac," a Gainsborough painting.

Mrs. van der Luyden's own picture, by Huntington, faced that lovely lady of the family's past. In it she wore black velvet and Venetian lace. People called it "as fine as a Cabanel," the famous French painter. Twenty years on, they still said it looked just like her.

Indeed, the woman under it could be that fair, still young lady's twin sister. The painted lady leaned on a gold armchair, before a heavy green cloth.

Mrs. van der Luyden still wore black velvet and lace when she met society. Or rather, society came to her doors, for she never dined out.

Her fair hair was lighter now, but not grey. She still parted it in flat points on her forehead. Her straight nose, between pale blue eyes, was only a little thinner than in the picture.

To Newland Archer, she seemed preserved, kept unchanged in a way that was a little terrible. Her perfectly correct, airless life had done it. She was like a body caught in a glacier, a great slow river of ice. Such bodies stay pink for years, dead but looking alive.

Like all his family, Archer respected and admired her. But her gentle, bending sweetness was harder to come near than his mother's fierce old aunts. Those women never married, and they said "No" on principle, before they heard the question.

Mrs. van der Luyden's manner said neither yes nor no. It seemed to lean toward kindness. Then her thin lips would move into the shadow of a smile. Her answer was almost always the same: "I must first talk this over with my husband."

She and her husband were so exactly alike that Archer often wondered. After forty years of closest marriage, they seemed like one person. How could two such joined minds separate enough to talk anything over?

But neither ever decided anything without this strange private meeting. So Mrs. Archer and her son laid out their case, and waited for the familiar phrase.

Mrs. van der Luyden almost never surprised anyone. Now she surprised them. She reached her long hand toward the bell-rope.

"I think," she said, "I should like Henry to hear what you have told me."

A footman came in. She spoke to him seriously. "If Mr. van der Luyden has finished reading the newspaper, please ask him to be kind enough to come."

She said "reading the newspaper" in a special tone. A minister's wife might say in that tone, "He is leading a meeting of the government." There was no pride in it. Lifelong habit, and everyone around her, taught her to see his smallest act as almost religious.

Her quick action showed she too found the case pressing. But she must not seem to promise anything. She added, with her sweetest look, "Henry always enjoys seeing you, dear Adeline. And he will want to give Newland his good wishes."

The double doors opened again, slowly and seriously. Between them appeared Mr. Henry van der Luyden, tall and thin. He wore a frock coat, the long formal coat of a gentleman.

He had faded fair hair, and a straight nose like his wife's. His eyes had the same frozen gentleness, but in pale grey instead of pale blue.

He greeted Mrs. Archer warmly, like a cousin. In a low voice, he gave Newland good wishes, almost in his wife's words. Then he sat down, simply, like a ruling king.

"I had just finished reading the Times," he said, laying his long finger-tips together. "In town my mornings are so full. I find it easier to read the newspapers after lunch."

"Ah, there is much to say for that plan," Mrs. Archer answered. "My uncle Egmont used to say the morning papers were less upsetting after dinner."

"Yes. My good father hated hurry. But now we live in a constant rush," said Mr. van der Luyden in a slow, measured voice. He looked with quiet pleasure around the large covered room. To Archer, it was a complete picture of its owners.

"But I hope you really finished your reading, Henry?" his wife broke in.

"Quite, quite," he said, calming her.

"Then I should like Adeline to tell you—"

"Oh, it is really Newland's story," said his mother, smiling. She told, once more, the shocking story of the wrong done to Mrs. Lovell Mingott. "Of course," she ended, "Augusta Welland and Mary Mingott both felt you and Henry ought to know. Especially because of Newland's engagement."

"Ah—" said Mr. van der Luyden, and drew a deep breath.

In the silence, the great gold clock sounded as loud as a great gun, firing once a minute.

Archer watched the two thin, faded figures with wonder and respect. They sat side by side, straight and still, as if they ruled for a far-away king. They were voices of an old family authority, the power to judge and decide for all. Fate made them carry it.

But they wanted a simple, hidden life at Skuytercliff, their place in the country. There they could dig invisible weeds, unwanted plants, out of the perfect grass. In the evenings they could play Patience, a quiet card game.

Mr. van der Luyden spoke first.

"You really think this came from some—some planned act of Lawrence Lefferts's?" he asked, turning to Archer.

"I am certain of it, sir," Archer answered. "Larry has been behaving worse than usual, if cousin Louisa will forgive my saying it. He is having a love affair with the village postmaster's wife, or some such woman."

He went on, "Whenever poor Gertrude Lefferts begins to suspect something, Larry is afraid of trouble. So he raises a storm like this, to show how deeply moral he is. He shouts that it is rude to invite his wife to meet people he does not want her to know."

"He is simply using Madame Olenska as a lightning-rod, the rod that draws lightning away from a house," Archer said. "I have seen him try this trick before."

"The Leffertses!" said Mrs. van der Luyden.

"The Leffertses!" said Mrs. Archer after her. "What would my uncle Egmont say? Lawrence Lefferts, deciding anyone's place in society! It shows what Society has come to."

"We will hope it has not quite come to that," said Mr. van der Luyden firmly.

"Ah, if only you and Louisa went out more!" said Mrs. Archer.

At once she knew her mistake. The van der Luydens could not bear one word against their hidden way of life.

They were the judges of fashion, the court of last appeal, where the final word is spoken. They knew it, and bowed to their fate. But by nature they were shy, quiet people, with no love for the part they played.

So they lived mostly in the deep quiet of Skuytercliff, among the trees. When they came to town, they refused every invitation. They gave Mrs. van der Luyden's weak health as the reason.

Newland came to help his mother. "Everyone in New York knows what you and cousin Louisa represent. So Mrs. Mingott felt she must not let this wrong to Countess Olenska pass without asking you."

Mrs. van der Luyden looked at her husband, and he looked back at her.

"It is the principle that I dislike," said Mr. van der Luyden. "As long as a well-known family stands behind one of its members, the matter should be final."

"It seems so to me," said his wife, as if the thought was quite new.

"I did not know," Mr. van der Luyden went on, "that things stood so badly." He paused and looked at his wife again.

"My dear, a thought comes to me. The Countess Olenska is already a kind of relation, through Medora Manson's first husband. And when Newland marries, she will be family in any case." He turned to the young man. "Have you read this morning's Times, Newland?"

"Why, yes, sir," said Archer, who usually ran through half a dozen papers with his morning coffee.

Husband and wife looked at each other again, in long, serious, silent talk. Then a small smile crossed her face. Clearly she guessed, and approved.

Mr. van der Luyden turned to Mrs. Archer. "If Louisa's health allowed her to dine out, we would gladly take the Lawrence Leffertses' empty places at her dinner. Please tell Mrs. Lovell Mingott so."

He paused to let them taste the cold joke under the polite words. "As you know, this is impossible." Mrs. Archer made a soft sound of understanding.

"But Newland tells me he has read this morning's Times," he said. "Then he has seen the news about Louisa's relative, the Duke of St. Austrey."

He went on, "He arrives next week on the ship Russia. He comes to enter his new sloop, the Guinevere, in next summer's International Cup Race. And he wants to shoot some canvasback ducks at Trevenna."

A sloop is a light racing ship, and canvasbacks are wild water birds.

He paused again, and went on with growing warmth. "Before we take him down to Maryland, we are inviting a few friends to meet him here. Only a little dinner, with a party after. I am sure Louisa will be as glad as I am if Countess Olenska will be our guest."

He stood, and bent his long body toward his cousin with slow, formal friendliness. "I think I may speak for Louisa. When she drives out today, she will leave the dinner invitation herself. With our cards—of course, with our cards."

A card meant a visiting card, printed with the family name.

Mrs. Archer understood the hint. The tall red-brown horses at the door were never kept waiting. She rose, with quick, low thanks.

Mrs. van der Luyden smiled on her like Esther in the Bible, when Esther won a favor from King Ahasuerus. But her husband raised his hand in protest.

"There is nothing to thank me for, dear Adeline. Nothing at all. This kind of thing must not happen in New York. And as long as I can stop it, it will not happen." He spoke with the gentleness of a king, and led his cousins to the door.

Two hours later, all New York knew. Mrs. van der Luyden's great barouche, her grand open carriage, was seen at old Mrs. Mingott's door. She rode out in it in every season, for air. There a large square letter was handed in.

That evening at the Opera, Mr. Sillerton Jackson could tell everyone what it was. It was a card. It invited the Countess Olenska to the van der Luydens' dinner for the Duke, the following week.

Some younger men in the club box smiled at this news. They looked sideways at Lawrence Lefferts, who sat carelessly at the front of the box, pulling his long fair moustache.

As the soprano, the leading woman singer, paused, Lefferts spoke with authority. "No one but Patti ought to try to sing the Sonnambula," he said.