Добавил:
ivanov666
Опубликованный материал нарушает ваши авторские права? Сообщите нам.
Вуз:
Предмет:
Файл:The Reef
.pdf
THE REEF
a “carte de visite” photograph of the middle sixties. One saw
her, younger but no less invincibly lady-like, leaning on a chair
with a fringed back, a curl in her neck, a locket on her tuckered
bosom, toward the end of an embossed morocco album beginning with The Beauties of the Second Empire.
She received her daughter-in-law’s suitor with an affability
which implied her knowledge and approval of his suit. Darrow
had already guessed her to be a person who would instinctively
oppose any suggested changes, and then, after one had exhausted
one’s main arguments, unexpectedly yield to some small incidental reason, and adhere doggedly to her new position. She boasted of her old-fashioned prejudices, talked a good deal of being
a grandmother, and made a show of reaching up to tap Owen’s
shoulder, though his height was little more than hers.
She was full of a small pale prattle about the people she
had seen at Ouchy, as to whom she had the minute statistical information of a gazetteer, without any apparent sense of
personal differences. She said to Darrow: “They tell me things
are very much changed in America . . . Of course in my youth
there WAS a Society” . . . She had no desire to return there
she was sure the standards must be so different. “There are
charming people everywhere . . . and one must always look on
the best side . . . but when one has lived among Traditions it’s
diffi cult to adapt one’s self to the new ideas . . . These dreadful views of marriage . . . it’s so hard to explain them to my
French relations . . . I’m thankful to say I don’t pretend to understand them myself! But YOU’RE an Everard – I told Anna
last spring in London that one sees that instantly” . . .
141
EDITH WHARTON
She wandered off to the cooking and the service of the hotel at Ouchy. She attached great importance to gastronomic
details and to the manners of hotel servants. There, too, there
was a falling off, she said. “I don t know, of course; but people say it’s owing to the Americans. Certainly my waiter had
a way of slapping down the dishes . . . they tell me that many of
them are Anarchists . . . belong to Unions, you know.” She appealed to Darrow’s reported knowledge of economic conditions to confi rm this ominous rumour.
After dinner Owen Leath wandered into the next room,
where the piano stood, and began to play among the shadows.
His step-mother presently joined him, and Darrow sat alone
with Madame de Chantelle.
She took up the thread of her mild chat and carried it on
at the same pace as her knitting. Her conversation resembled the large loose-stranded web between her fi ngers: now
and then she dropped a stitch, and went on regardless of
the gap in the pattern.
Darrow listened with a lazy sense of well-being. In the mental lull of the after-dinner hour, with harmonious memories
murmuring through his mind, and the soft tints and shadowy
spaces of the fi ne old room charming his eyes to indolence,
Madame de Chantelle’s discourse seemed not out of place.
He could understand that, in the long run, the atmosphere of
Givre might be suffocating; but in his present mood its very
limitations had a grace.
Presently he found the chance to say a word in his own behalf; and thereupon measured the advantage, never before particularly apparent to him, of being related to the Everards of
142
THE REEF
Albany. Madame de Chantelle’s conception of her native
country – to which she had not returned since her twentieth year – reminded him of an ancient geographer’s map of
the Hyperborean regions. It was all a foggy blank, from which
only one or two fi xed outlines emerged; and one of these belonged to the Everards of Albany.
The fact that they offered such fi rm footing – formed, so to
speak, a friendly territory on which the opposing powers could
meet and treat – helped him through the task of explaining
and justifying himself as the successor of Fraser Leath. Madame de Chantelle could not resist such incontestable claims.
She seemed to feel her son’s hovering and discriminating presence, and she gave Darrow the sense that he was being tested
and approved as a last addition to the Leath Collection.
She also made him aware of the immense advantage he possessed in belonging to the diplomatic profession. She spoke of
this humdrum calling as a Career, and gave Darrow to understand that she supposed him to have been seducing Duchesses
when he was not negotiating Treaties. He heard again quaint
phrases which romantic old ladies had used in his youth: “Brilliant diplomatic society . . . social advantages . . . the entree everywhere . . . nothing else FORMS a young man in the same
way . . . ” and she sighingly added that she could have wished
her grandson had chosen the same path to glory.
Darrow prudently suppressed his own view of the profession, as well as the fact that he had adopted it provisionally,
and for reasons less social than sociological; and the talk presently passed on to the subject of his future plans.
143
EDITH WHARTON
Here again, Madame de Chantelle’s awe of the Career made
her admit the necessity of Anna’s consenting to an early marriage. The fact that Darrow was “ordered” to South America
seemed to put him in the romantic light of a young soldier
charged to lead a forlorn hope: she sighed and said: “At such
moments a wife’s duty is at her husband’s side.”
The problem of Effi e’s future might have disturbed her, she
added; but since Anna, for a time, consented to leave the little
girl with her, that problem was at any rate deferred. She spoke
plaintively of the responsibility of looking after her granddaughter, but Darrow divined that she enjoyed the fl avour of
the word more than she felt the weight of the fact.
“Effi e’s a perfect child. She’s more like my son, perhaps,
than dear Owen. She’ll never intentionally give me the least
trouble. But of course the responsibility will be great . . . I’m not
sure I should dare to undertake it if it were not for her having
such a treasure of a governess. Has Anna told you about our
little governess? After all the worry we had last year, with one
impossible creature after another, it seems providential, just
now, to have found her. At fi rst we were afraid she was too
young; but now we’ve the greatest confi dence in her. So clever
and amusing – and SUCH a lady! I don’t say her education’s
all it might be . . . no drawing or singing . . . but one can’t have
everything; and she speaks Italian . . . ”
Madame de Chantelle’s fond insistence on the likeness
between Effi e Leath and her father, if not particularly gratifying to Darrow, had at least increased his desire to see the little girl. It gave him an odd feeling of discomfort to think
that she should have any of the characteristics of the late
144
THE REEF
Fraser Leath: he had, somehow, fantastically pictured her as
the mystical offspring of the early tenderness between himself and Anna Summers.
His encounter with Effi e took place the next morning, on
the lawn below the terrace, where he found her, in the early sunshine, knocking about golf balls with her brother. Almost at once, and with infi nite relief, he saw that the resemblance of which Madame de Chantelle boasted was mainly
external. Even that discovery was slightly distasteful, though
Darrow was forced to own that Fraser Leath’s straight-featured fairness had lent itself to the production of a peculiarly
fi nished image of childish purity. But it was evident that other
elements had also gone to the making of Effi e, and that another spirit sat in her eyes. Her serious handshake, her “pretty”
greeting, were worthy of the Leath tradition, and he guessed
her to be more malleable than Owen, more subject to the infl uences of Givre; but the shout with which she returned to
her romp had in it the note of her mother’s emancipation.
He had begged a holiday for her, and when Mrs. Leath
appeared he and she and the little girl went off for a ramble.
Anna wished her daughter to have time to make friends with
Darrow before learning in what relation he was to stand to
her; and the three roamed the woods and fi elds till the distant
chime of the stable-clock made them turn back for luncheon.
Effi e, who was attended by a shaggy terrier, had picked up
two or three subordinate dogs at the stable; and as she trotted on ahead with her yapping escort, Anna hung back to
throw a look at Darrow.
145
EDITH WHARTON
“Yes,” he answered it, “she’s exquisite . . . Oh, I see what I’m
asking of you! But she’ll be quite happy here, won’t she? And
you must remember it won’t be for long . . . ”
Anna sighed her acquiescence. “Oh, she’ll be happy here.
It’s her nature to be happy. She’ll apply herself to it, conscientiously, as she does to her lessons, and to what she calls ‘being good’ . . . In a way, you see, that’s just what worries me.
Her idea of ‘being good’ is to please the person she’s with – she
puts her whole dear little mind on it! And so, if ever she’s with
the wrong person — ”
“But surely there’s no danger of that just now? Madame de
Chantelle tells me that you’ve at last put your hand on a perfect governess — ”
Anna, without answering, glanced away from him toward
her daughter.
“It’s lucky, at any rate,” Darrow continued, “that Madame
de Chantelle thinks her so.”
“Oh, I think very highly of her too.”
“Highly enough to feel quite satisfi ed to leave her with
Effi e?”
“Yes. She’s just the person for Effi e. Only, of course, one
never knows . . . She’s young, and she might take it into her
head to leave us . . . ” After a pause she added: “I’m naturally
anxious to know what you think of her.”
When they entered the house the hands of the hall clock
stood within a few minutes of the luncheon hour. Anna led
Effi e off to have her hair smoothed and Darrow wandered into
the oak sitting-room, which he found untenanted. The sun
lay pleasantly on its brown walls, on the scattered books and
146
THE REEF
the fl owers in old porcelain vases. In his eyes lingered the vision of the dark-haired mother mounting the stairs with her
little fair daughter. The contrast between them seemed a last
touch of grace in the complex harmony of things. He stood in
the window, looking out at the park, and brooding inwardly
upon his happiness . . .
He was roused by Effi e’s voice and the scamper of her feet
down the long fl oors behind him.
“Here he is! Here he is!” she cried, fl ying over the threshold.
He turned and stooped to her with a smile, and as she
caught his hand he perceived that she was trying to draw him
toward some one who had paused behind her in the doorway,
and whom he supposed to be her mother.
“HERE he is!” Effi e repeated, with her sweet impatience.
The fi gure in the doorway came forward and Darrow,
looking up, found himself face to face with Sophy Viner. They
stood still, a yard or two apart, and looked at each other without speaking.
As they paused there, a shadow fell across one of the terrace
windows, and Owen Leath stepped whistling into the room.
In his rough shooting clothes, with the glow of exercise under his fair skin, he looked extraordinarily light-hearted and
happy. Darrow, with a quick side-glance, noticed this, and perceived also that the glow on the youth’s cheek had deepened
suddenly to red. He too stopped short, and the three stood
there motionless for a barely perceptible beat of time. During
its lapse, Darrow’s eyes had turned back from Owen’s face to
that of the girl between them. He had the sense that, whatever
147
EDITH WHARTON
was done, it was he who must do it, and that it must be done
immediately. He went forward and held out his hand.
“How do you do, Miss Viner?”
She answered: “How do you do?” in a voice that sounded
clear and natural; and the next moment he again became
aware of steps behind him, and knew that Mrs. Leath was in
the room.
To his strained senses there seemed to be another just measurable pause before Anna said, looking gaily about the little
group: “Has Owen introduced you? This is Effi e’s friend, Miss
Viner.”
Effi e, still hanging on her governess’s arm, pressed herself
closer with a little gesture of appropriation; and Miss Viner
laid her hand on her pupil’s hair.
Darrow felt that Anna’s eyes had turned to him.
“I think Miss Viner and I have met already – several years
ago in London.”
“I remember,” said Sophy Viner, in the same clear voice.
“How charming! Then we’re all friends. But luncheon must
be ready,” said Mrs. Leath.
She turned back to the door, and the little procession
moved down the two long drawing-rooms, with Effi e waltzing on ahead.
CHAPTER XV
Madame de Chantelle and Anna had planned, for the afternoon, a visit to a remotely situated acquaintance whom
the introduction of the motor had transformed into a neighbour. Effi e was to pay for her morning’s holiday by an hour or
two in the school-room, and Owen suggested that he and Darrow should betake themselves to a distant covert in the desultory quest for pheasants.
Darrow was not an ardent sportsman, but any pretext for
physical activity would have been acceptable at the moment;
and he was glad both to get away from the house and not to be
left to himself.
When he came downstairs the motor was at the door, and
Anna stood before the hall mirror, swathing her hat in veils.
She turned at the sound of his step and smiled at him for
a long full moment.
“I’d no idea you knew Miss Viner,” she said, as he helped
her into her long coat.
“It came back to me, luckily, that I’d seen her two or
three times in London, several years ago. She was secretary,
or something of the sort, in the background of a house where
I used to dine.”
149
EDITH WHARTON
He loathed the slighting indifference of the phrase, but
he had uttered it deliberately, had been secretly practising
it all through the interminable hour at the luncheon-table.
Now that it was spoken, he shivered at its note of condescension. In such cases one was almost sure to overdo . . . But Anna
seemed to notice nothing unusual.
“Was she really? You must tell me all about it – tell me
exactly how she struck you. I’m so glad it turns out that you
know her.”
“‘Know’ is rather exaggerated: we used to pass each other on the stairs.”
Madame de Chantelle and Owen appeared together as he
spoke, and Anna, gathering up her wraps, said: “You’ll tell me
about that, then. Try and remember everything you can.”
As he tramped through the woods at his young host’s side,
Darrow felt the partial relief from thought produced by exercise and the obligation to talk. Little as he cared for shooting, he had the habit of concentration which makes it natural
for a man to throw himself wholly into whatever business he
has in hand, and there were moments of the afternoon when
a sudden whirr in the undergrowth, a vivider gleam against
the hazy browns and greys of the woods, was enough to fi ll
the foreground of his attention. But all the while, behind these
voluntarily emphasized sensations, his secret consciousness
continued to revolve on a loud wheel of thought. For a time
it seemed to be sweeping him through deep gulfs of darkness.
His sensations were too swift and swarming to be disentangled. He had an almost physical sense of struggling for air, of
battling helplessly with material obstructions, as though
150
Соседние файлы в предмете [НЕСОРТИРОВАННОЕ]