Chapter 8

All New York agreed that the Countess Olenska had "lost her looks."

She first came when Newland Archer was a boy, a wonderfully pretty girl of nine or ten. People said she "ought to be painted." Her parents were travelers, always moving about Europe. After a traveling babyhood, Ellen lost them both.

Her aunt, Medora Manson, herself a traveler, took the child in charge. Just then she was coming home to "settle down."

Poor Medora lost one husband after another. She was always coming home to settle down, each time in a cheaper house. Each time she brought a new husband, or a new adopted child.

Within a few months she parted from the husband, or fought with the child. Then she sold the house at a loss and traveled again.

Her mother was a Rushworth, and her last sad marriage tied her to one of the crazy Chiverses. So New York smiled at her strange ways.

But now she brought home her dead brother's little girl. Ellen's parents, for all their travels, were well liked. People were sorry to see the pretty child in such hands.

Everyone was ready to be kind to little Ellen Mingott. But her parents were just dead. Such a child should be in mourning, the black clothes worn after a death. Instead, her dark red cheeks and tight rings of hair made her look bright and happy.

Medora never followed America's firm rules of mourning. When she stepped off the ship, her family was shocked. Her mourning veil, the thin black cloth over her face, was for her own dead brother. Yet it hung seven inches shorter than her sisters-in-law's.

And little Ellen wore bright red wool and a chain of yellow-brown stones. She looked like a lost child from traveling people.

New York was long used to Medora. Only a few old ladies shook their heads at Ellen's loud clothes. The rest fell in love with her bright color and high spirits.

Ellen was a fearless, friendly little thing. She asked questions that troubled grown people, and said things far too old for her years.

She had strange foreign skills too. She danced a Spanish shawl dance, waving the great cloth worn over the shoulders. She sang love songs from Naples to a guitar, a wooden box with music strings.

Her aunt directed all this. Her real name was Mrs. Thorley Chivers. The Pope, head of the church in Rome, once gave her a title.

So she took back her first husband's name and called herself the Marchioness Manson. In Italy, "Manson" could turn into "Manzoni."

Under her, Ellen received a costly education without order or plan. She learned "drawing from the model," drawing a real living person — a thing never dreamed of before. And she played the piano, the great music-maker with keys, with professional players.

Of course no good could come of this. A few years later, poor Chivers died in a house for the mad. Medora, in strange black clothes, packed up and left with Ellen. The girl was now tall and thin, all bones, with big eyes people noticed.

For a time no more was heard of them. Then news came of Ellen's marriage. Her husband was a Polish nobleman, a man born to a high title, endlessly rich and famous. She met him at a ball at the Tuileries, the home of the French court.

People said he kept grand houses in Paris, Nice, and Florence, and a yacht, a private pleasure boat, at Cowes. He owned miles of hunting land in Transylvania. So Ellen disappeared into that great shining life. To New York, it had a faint smell of fire and danger.

A few years later, Medora came back once more, quiet and poor. She was in mourning for a third husband and looking for a still smaller house. People wondered why her rich niece did nothing for her.

Then fresh news came. Ellen's own marriage had ended in disaster. She was coming home herself, to rest and forget among her own people.

All this passed through Newland Archer's mind a week later. He was watching the Countess Olenska enter the van der Luydens' drawing-room. It was the evening of the great dinner, and he wondered, a little nervously, how she would come through it.

She came rather late. One hand still had no glove. She was closing a band of jewels, costly stones, at her arm. Yet she entered without hurry or fear. New York's most chosen company sat there, heavy with its own importance.

In the middle of the room she stopped, and looked about her with a serious mouth and smiling eyes. At that moment, Newland Archer rejected New York's opinion of her looks.

Her early brightness was gone, it was true. The red cheeks were pale. She was thin and worn, and looked a little older than her almost thirty years.

But she had the mysterious authority of beauty. It showed in the sure way she held her head and moved her eyes. There was no acting in it. Yet it seemed trained, full of a quiet power she knew and used.

Yet her manner was simpler than that of most ladies there. Many people were disappointed that she had not more "style." Janey told Archer so afterward. For style was what New York valued most.

Perhaps, Archer thought, it was because her old quickness was gone. She was quiet in her movement and her low voice. New York expected something louder from a young woman with such a history.

The dinner was a heavy business. Dining with the van der Luydens was never light. And dining there with a Duke who was their cousin was almost a church service.

One fine point pleased Archer. Only an old New Yorker could taste the difference between an ordinary Duke and the van der Luydens' Duke. New York took visiting noblemen calmly. It often showed a cold, untrusting pride, everywhere but in the Struthers set.

But this Duke came with the highest family proofs, and New York received him with an old-fashioned warm welcome. The welcome came from something deeper than his place in Debrett, the book of Britain's titled families. For such fine points Archer loved his old New York, even while he smiled at it.

The van der Luydens did their best to mark the evening's importance. The finest family dishes and silver were out: the du Lac Sèvres and the Trevenna George II plate. The "Lowestoft" of the East India Company and the Dagonet Crown Derby were out too.

Mrs. van der Luyden looked more than ever like a painting by Cabanel. Mrs. Archer, in her grandmother's tiny pearls and green stones, reminded her son of a small painting by Isabey.

All the ladies wore their handsomest jewels. In this house, they were mostly in heavy, old-fashioned settings. Old Miss Lanning, persuaded to come at last, wore her mother's cameos and a fine Spanish shawl.

The Countess Olenska was the only young woman at the dinner. Archer looked at the smooth, round faces of the older women, between their diamond chains and tall feathers. Next to hers, those faces seemed strangely unformed. It frightened him to think of all that went to the making of her eyes.

The Duke of St. Austrey sat at Mrs. van der Luyden's right hand. He was, of course, the chief figure of the evening. But if the Countess drew less notice than people hoped, the Duke drew almost none.

He had good manners. So he did not come to dinner in a rough hunting coat, like another visiting Duke before him. But his evening clothes were old and loose, and he wore them like plain homemade cloth.

He sat bent, and the thick hair of his face spread over his shirt-front. He hardly looked dressed for dinner at all.

He was short and round-shouldered, brown from the sun, with a thick nose, small eyes, and a friendly smile. But he almost never spoke. When he did, his voice was very low. The table often fell silent, waiting, but his words were lost all the same.

After dinner, the men joined the ladies, and the Duke went straight to the Countess Olenska. They sat down in a corner and fell into eager talk. Neither seemed to know the rules they were breaking.

By rule, the Duke owed his first visit to Mrs. Lovell Mingott and Mrs. Headly Chivers. The Countess owed her talk to friendly Mr. Urban Dagonet of Washington Square. He was a hypochondriac. A hypochondriac was a man who always believed he was ill.

His fixed rule was never to dine out between January and April. But he broke it this once, for the pleasure of meeting her.

The two talked for nearly twenty minutes. Then the Countess rose, walked alone across the wide drawing-room, and sat down at Newland Archer's side.

In New York, a lady did not leave one gentleman to look for another. The rule said she must wait, still as stone, while the men came to her one by one.

But the Countess did not seem to know she was breaking any rule. She sat at perfect ease beside him, and looked at him with the kindest eyes.

"I want you to talk to me about May," she said.

Instead of answering, he asked, "You knew the Duke before?"

"Oh, yes. We used to see him every winter at Nice. He loves playing cards for money. He came to the house a great deal." She said it simply, like saying, "He loves wild flowers."

After a moment she added honestly, "I think he's the dullest man I ever met."

This pleased Archer so much that he forgot the small shock of her earlier words. It was exciting to meet a lady who found the van der Luydens' Duke dull — and dared to say so.

He longed to question her. Her careless words gave him a bright window into her old life. But he feared to touch painful memories. Before he found anything to say, she came back to her first subject.

"May is a darling. I've seen no young girl in New York so handsome and so intelligent. Are you very much in love with her?"

Newland Archer turned red and laughed. "As much as a man can be."

She looked at him thoughtfully, afraid to miss any shade of his meaning. "Do you think, then, there is a limit?"

"To being in love? If there is, I haven't found it!"

Her face warmed with kind feeling. "Ah, it is really a romance, a true love story?"

"The most romantic of romances!"

"How lovely! And you found it all out for yourselves? It was not in the least arranged for you?"

Archer stared, hardly believing the question. "Have you forgotten," he asked with a smile, "that in our country we don't allow arranged marriages?"

A dark red color rose in her cheek, and he was sorry at once for his words.

"Yes," she answered. "I forgot. You must forgive me if I sometimes make these mistakes. I don't always remember. Everything here is good that was — that was bad in the place I come from."

She looked down at her fan of eagle feathers from Vienna. Archer saw that her lips shook.

"I'm so sorry," he said quickly. "But you are among friends here, you know."

"Yes — I know. Wherever I go, I have that feeling. That's why I came home. I want to forget everything else and become a complete American again, like the Mingotts and Wellands. Like you, and your lovely mother, and all the good people here tonight."

Then she added, "Ah, here's May arriving, and you will want to hurry away to her." But she did not move. Her eyes turned back from the door to his face.

The great rooms were filling with after-dinner guests. Archer followed Madame Olenska's look and saw May Welland enter with her mother. May wore white and silver, with a ring of silver flowers in her hair. The tall girl looked like Diana just back from the hunt. Diana was the female god of hunting in old Roman stories.

"Oh," said Archer, "she is already surrounded. So many others want her. There is the Duke meeting her now."

"Then stay with me a little longer," Madame Olenska said softly. Her feather fan just touched his knee. The light touch ran through him like love.

"Yes, let me stay," he answered in the same tone, hardly knowing what he said. But just then Mr. van der Luyden came up, with old Mr. Dagonet behind him.

The Countess greeted them with her serious smile. Archer felt his host's warning look, rose, and gave up his seat.

Madame Olenska held out her hand, as if to say goodbye.

"Tomorrow, then, after five. I shall expect you," she said. Then she turned back to make room for Mr. Dagonet.

"Tomorrow," Archer heard himself repeat. Yet they made no plan. In all their talk she gave no sign of wishing to see him again.

As he moved away, he saw Lawrence Lefferts lead his wife forward. Lawrence was tall and shining. He heard Gertrude Lefferts speak to the Countess with a large, blind smile. "I think we went to dancing school together as children," she said.

Behind her, more couples waited to give the Countess their names. They were the same couples who had refused to meet her at Mrs. Lovell Mingott's house.

It was as Mrs. Archer said. When the van der Luydens chose, they knew how to give a lesson. The wonder was that they chose so rarely.

The young man felt a touch on his arm. Mrs. van der Luyden was looking down at him from her height of black velvet and family diamonds.

"It was good of you, dear Newland," she said, "to give yourself to Madame Olenska with no thought for yourself. I told your cousin Henry he must really step in and save her."

He gave her a small, empty smile, hardly aware of it. She went on kindly, as if excusing his natural shyness. "I've never seen May looking lovelier. The Duke thinks her the handsomest girl in the room."