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THE REEF
“May Effi e go out for a turn with Nurse?” the girl asked.
“I should like to speak to you a moment.”
“Of course. This ought to be YOUR holiday, as yesterday was Effi e’s. Run off, dear,” she added, stooping to kiss
the little girl.
When the door had closed she turned back to Sophy Viner
with a look that sought her confi dence. “I’m so glad you came,
my dear. We’ve got so many things to talk about, just you and
I together.”
The confused intercourse of the last days had, in fact, left
little time for any speech with Sophy but such as related to
her marriage and the means of overcoming Madame de Chantelle’s opposition to it. Anna had exacted of Owen that no one,
not even Sophy Viner, should be given a hint of her own projects till all contingent questions had been disposed of. She had
felt, from the outset, a secret reluctance to intrude her securer
happiness on the doubts and fears of the young pair.
From the sofa-corner to which she had dropped back she
pointed to Darrow’s chair. “Come and sit by me, dear. I wanted to see you alone. There’s so much to say that I hardly know
where to begin.”
She leaned forward, her hands clasped on the arms of
the sofa, her eyes bent smilingly on Sophy’s. As she did so,
she noticed that the girl’s unusual pallour was partly due to
the slight veil of powder on her face. The discovery was distinctly disagreeable. Anna had never before noticed, on
Sophy’s part, any recourse to cosmetics, and, much as she
wished to think herself exempt from old-fashioned prejudices, she suddenly became aware that she did not like her
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EDITH WHARTON
daughter’s governess to have a powdered face. Then she refl ected that the girl who sat opposite her was no longer Effi e’s governess, but her own future daughter-in-law; and she
wondered whether Miss Viner had chosen this odd way of
celebrating her independence, and whether, as Mrs. Owen
Leath, she would present to the world a bedizened countenance. This idea was scarcely less distasteful than the other,
and for a moment Anna continued to consider her without
speaking. Then, in a fl ash, the truth came to her: Miss Viner
had powdered her face because Miss Viner had been crying.
Anna leaned forward impulsively. “My dear child, what’s
the matter?” She saw the girl’s blood rush up under the white
mask, and hastened on: “Please don’t be afraid to tell me. I do
so want you to feel that you can trust me as Owen does. And
you know you mustn’t mind if, just at fi rst, Madame de Chantelle occasionally relapses.”
She spoke eagerly, persuasively, almost on a note of pleading. She had, in truth, so many reasons for wanting Sophy to
like her: her love for Owen, her solicitude for Effi e, and her
own sense of the girl’s fi ne mettle. She had always felt a romantic and almost humble admiration for those members of
her sex who, from force of will, or the constraint of circumstances, had plunged into the confl ict from which fate had so
persistently excluded her. There were even moments when
she fancied herself vaguely to blame for her immunity, and
felt that she ought somehow to have affronted the perils and
hardships which refused to come to her. And now, as she sat
looking at Sophy Viner, so small, so slight, so visibly defenceless and undone, she still felt, through all the superiority of
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THE REEF
her worldly advantages and her seeming maturity, the same
odd sense of ignorance and inexperience. She could not have
said what there was in the girl’s manner and expression to
give her this feeling, but she was reminded, as she looked at
Sophy Viner, of the other girls she had known in her youth,
the girls who seemed possessed of a secret she had missed. Yes,
Sophy Viner had their look – almost the obscurely menacing
look of Kitty Mayne . . . Anna, with an inward smile, brushed
aside the image of this forgotten rival. But she had felt, deep
down, a twinge of the old pain, and she was sorry that, even
for the fl ash of a thought, Owen’s betrothed should have reminded her of so different a woman . . .
She laid her hand on the girl’s. “When his grandmother sees how happy Owen is she’ll be quite happy herself.
If it’s only that, don’t be distressed. Just trust to Owen – and
the future.”
Sophy Viner, with an almost imperceptible recoil of her
whole slight person, had drawn her hand from under the palm
enclosing it.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about – the future.”
“Of course! We’ve all so many plans to make – and to fi t
into each other’s. Please let’s begin with yours.”
The girl paused a moment, her hands clasped on the arms of
her chair, her lids dropped under Anna’s gaze; then she said:
“I should like to make no plans at all . . . just yet . . . ”
“No plans?”
“No – I should like to go away . . . my friends the Farlows
would let me go to them . . . ” Her voice grew fi rmer and
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EDITH WHARTON
she lifted her eyes to add: “I should like to leave today, if
you don’t mind.”
Anna listened with a rising wonder.
“You want to leave Givre at once?” She gave the idea a moment’s swift consideration. “You prefer to be with your friends
till your marriage? I understand that – but surely you needn’t
rush off today? There are so many details to discuss; and before
long, you know, I shall be going away too.”
“Yes, I know.” The girl was evidently trying to steady her
voice. “But I should like to wait a few days – to have a little
more time to myself.”
Anna continued to consider her kindly. It was evident that
she did not care to say why she wished to leave Givre so suddenly, but her disturbed face and shaken voice betrayed a more
pressing motive than the natural desire to spend the weeks before her marriage under her old friends’ roof. Since she had
made no response to the allusion to Madame de Chantelle,
Anna could but conjecture that she had had a passing disagreement with Owen; and if this were so, random interference might do more harm than good.
“My dear child, if you really want to go at once I sha’n’t, of
course, urge you to stay. I suppose you have spoken to Owen?”
“No. Not yet . . . ”
Anna threw an astonished glance at her. “You mean to say
you haven’t told him?”
“I wanted to tell you fi rst. I thought I ought to, on account of Effi e.” Her look cleared as she put forth this reason.
“Oh, Effi e! – ” Anna’s smile brushed away the scruple.
“Owen has a right to ask that you should consider him before
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THE REEF
you think of his sister . . . Of course you shall do just as you
wish,” she went on, after another thoughtful interval.
“Oh, thank you,” Sophy Viner murmured and rose to
her feet.
Anna rose also, vaguely seeking for some word that should
break down the girl’s resistance. “You’ll tell Owen at once?”
she fi nally asked.
Miss Viner, instead of replying, stood before her in manifest uncertainty, and as she did so there was a light tap on
the door, and Owen Leath walked into the room.
Anna’s fi rst glance told her that his face was unclouded.
He met her greeting with his happiest smile and turned to lift
Sophy’s hand to his lips. The perception that he was utterly
unconscious of any cause for Miss Viner’s agitation came to his
step-mother with a sharp thrill of surprise.
“Darrow’s looking for you,” he said to her. “He asked me to
remind you that you’d promised to go for a walk with him.”
Anna glanced at the clock. “I’ll go down presently.”
She waited and looked again at Sophy Viner, whose troubled
eyes seemed to commit their message to her. “You’d better tell
Owen, my dear.”
Owen’s look also turned on the girl. “Tell me what? Why,
what’s happened?”
Anna summoned a laugh to ease the vague tension of
the moment. “Don’t look so startled! Nothing, except that Sophy proposes to desert us for a while for the Farlows.”
Owen’s brow cleared. “I was afraid she’d run off before
long.” He glanced at Anna. “Do please keep her here as long
as you can!”
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EDITH WHARTON
Sophy intervened: “Mrs. Leath’s already given me
leave to go.”
“Already? To go when?”
“Today,” said Sophy in a low tone, her eyes on Anna’s.
“Today? Why on earth should you go today?” Owen
dropped back a step or two, fl ushing and paling under his bewildered frown. His eyes seemed to search the girl more closely. “Something’s happened.” He too looked at his step-mother.
“I suppose she must have told you what it is?”
Anna was struck by the suddenness and vehemence of his
appeal. It was as though some smouldering apprehension had
lain close under the surface of his security.
“She’s told me nothing except that she wishes to be
with her friends. It’s quite natural that she should want to
go to them.”
Owen visibly controlled himself. “Of course – quite natural.” He spoke to Sophy. “But why didn’t you tell me so? Why
did you come fi rst to my step-mother?”
Anna intervened with her calm smile. “That seems to me
quite natural, too. Sophy was considerate enough to tell me
fi rst because of Effi e.”
He weighed it. “Very well, then: that’s quite natural, as you
say. And of course she must do exactly as she pleases.” He still
kept his eyes on the girl. “Tomorrow,” he abruptly announced,
“I shall go up to Paris to see you.”
“Oh, no – no!” she protested.
Owen turned back to Anna. “NOW do you say that nothing’s happened?”
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THE REEF
Under the infl uence of his agitation Anna felt a vague
tightening of the heart. She seemed to herself like some one in
a dark room about whom unseen presences are groping.
“If it’s anything that Sophy wishes to tell you, no doubt
she’ll do so. I’m going down now, and I’ll leave you here to talk
it over by yourselves.”
As she moved to the door the girl caught up with her.
“But there’s nothing to tell: why should there be? I’ve explained that I simply want to be quiet.” Her look seemed to
detain Mrs. Leath.
Owen broke in: “Is that why I mayn’t go up tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow!”
“Then when may I?”
“Later . . . in a little while . . . a few days . . . ”
“In how many days?” “Owen!” his step-mother interposed;
but he seemed no longer aware of her. “If you go away today,
the day that our engagement’s made known, it’s only fair,” he
persisted, “that you should tell me when I am to see you.”
Sophy’s eyes wavered between the two and dropped
down wearily. “It’s you who are not fair – when I’ve said
I wanted to be quiet.”
“But why should my coming disturb you? I’m not asking
now to come tomorrow. I only ask you not to leave without
telling me when I’m to see you.”
“Owen, I don’t understand you!” his step-mother exclaimed.
“You don’t understand my asking for some explanation,
some assurance, when I’m left in this way, without a word,
without a sign? All I ask her to tell me is when she’ll see me.”
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EDITH WHARTON
Anna turned back to Sophy Viner, who stood straight and
tremulous between the two.
“After all, my dear, he’s not unreasonable!”
“I’ll write – I’ll write,” the girl repeated.
“WHAT will you write?” he pressed her vehemently.
“Owen,” Anna exclaimed, “you are unreasonable!”
He turned from Sophy to his step-mother. “I only want
her to say what she means: that she’s going to write to break
off our engagement. Isn’t that what you’re going away for?”
Anna felt the contagion of his excitement. She looked at
Sophy, who stood motionless, her lips set, her whole face
drawn to a silent fi xity of resistance.
“You ought to speak, my dear – you ought to answer him.”
“I only ask him to wait — ”
“Yes,” Owen, broke in, “and you won’t say how long!”
Both instinctively addressed themselves to Anna, who
stood, nearly as shaken as themselves, between the double
shock of their struggle. She looked again from Sophy’s inscrutable eyes to Owen’s stormy features; then she said: “What can
I do, when there’s clearly something between you that I don’t
know about?”
“Oh, if it WERE between us! Can’t you see it’s outside of
us – outside of her, dragging at her, dragging her away from
me?” Owen wheeled round again upon his step-mother.
Anna turned from him to the girl. “Is it true that you
want to break your engagement? If you do, you ought to tell
him now.”
Owen burst into a laugh. “She doesn’t dare to – she’s afraid
I’ll guess the reason!”
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THE REEF
A faint sound escaped from Sophy’s lips, but she kept them
close on whatever answer she had ready.
“If she doesn’t wish to marry you, why should she be
afraid to have you know the reason?”
“She’s afraid to have YOU know it – not me!”
“To have ME know it?”
He laughed again, and Anna, at his laugh, felt a sudden
rush of indignation.
“Owen, you must explain what you mean!”
He looked at her hard before answering; then: “Ask
Darrow!” he said.
“Owen – Owen!” Sophy Viner murmured.
CHAPTER XXIV
Anna stood looking from one to the other. It had become
apparent to her in a fl ash that Owen’s retort, though it startled
Sophy, did not take her by surprise; and the discovery shot its
light along dark distances of fear.
The immediate inference was that Owen had guessed
the reason of Darrow’s disapproval of his marriage, or that, at
least, he suspected Sophy Viner of knowing and dreading it.
This confi rmation of her own obscure doubt sent a tremor of
alarm through Anna. For a moment she felt like exclaiming:
“All this is really no business of mine, and I refuse to have you
mix me up in it – ” but her secret fear held her fast.
Sophy Viner was the fi rst to speak.
“I should like to go now,” she said in a low voice, taking
a few steps toward the door.
Her tone woke Anna to the sense of her own share in
the situation. “I quite agree with you, my dear, that it’s useless to
carry on this discussion. But since Mr. Darrow’s name has been
brought into it, for reasons which I fail to guess, I want to tell
you that you’re both mistaken if you think he’s not in sympathy with your marriage. If that’s what Owen means to imply,
the idea’s a complete delusion.”
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